AkiraBot uses OpenAI to generate custom outreach messages to spam chat widgets and website contact forms at scale.

A large-scale malvertising campaign distributed the Lumma Stealer info-stealing malware through fake CAPTCHA verification pages that prompt users to run PowerShell commands to verify they are not a bot.

Since mid-September 2024, our telemetry has revealed a significant increase in “Lumma Stealer”1 malware deployments via the “HijackLoader”2 malicious loader.

On October 2, 2024, HarfangLab EDR detected and blocked yet another HijackLoader deployment attempt – except this time, the malware sample was properly signed with a genuine code-signing certificate.

In response, we initiated a hunt for code-signing certificates (ab)used to sign malware samples. We identified and reported more of such certificates. This report briefly presents the associated stealer threat, outlines the methodology for hunting these certificates, and providees indicators of compromise.

McAfee Labs recently observed an infection chain where fake CAPTCHA pages are being leveraged to distribute malware, specifically Lumma Stealer. We are observing a campaign targeting multiple countries. Below is a map showing the geolocation of devices accessing fake CAPTCHA URLs, highlighting the global distribution of the attack.