Fake AI Agent Downloads Spread Mac Infostealers via Google Ads and Claude Chats

Attackers are targeting macOS users with fake AI tool downloads promoted through Google Ads and public Claude.ai shared chats. Victims searching for terms such as “Claude mac download” are shown sponsored results that appear to reference the legitimate claude.ai domain, but the links redirect to shared chats containing bogus installation instructions. The lures present themselves as official guidance for running Claude-related tools on Mac, sometimes even masquerading as Apple Support content, and tell users to paste commands into Terminal that instead fetch and execute malware.

Researchers said the campaign is active and uses rotating malicious chat pages and infrastructure to evade disruption. Observed payloads include Mac-focused infostealers with behavior consistent with AMOS and Amatera/MacSync-style theft, including collection of browser credentials, cookies, and Keychain data. The activity reflects a broader trend of threat actors disguising malware as AI agents and developer tools to exploit demand for generative AI software on macOS systems.