Attackers hide malware behind signed ChatGPT and Claude binaries in GitHub campaign
Check Point uncovered a campaign dubbed Yoba in which fake desktop apps impersonating ChatGPT, Claude Opus and other popular AI models were hosted on GitHub repositories with landing pages that ranked highly in Google search results. The installers bundled genuine, digitally signed OpenAI and Anthropic executables with a malicious library loaded through DLL sideloading, a technique where malware is loaded through a genuine, signed program so that security checks trust it, letting the malware slip past standard checks. The malware checked keyboard layouts to avoid machines in former Soviet countries other than Ukraine, a sign of likely Russian origin, and used Telegram and encrypted DNS lookups instead of traditional command-and-control infrastructure. The payload observed so far was a cryptominer, but researchers warn the same loader could deliver any other malware in future waves. For businesses that let staff download AI tools from the open internet, the case shows that a recognizable brand name like ChatGPT or Claude has itself become bait, regardless of whether the real vendor is involved at all.
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