Android Malware Is Disguised As ChatGPT Apps By Hackers, Endangering Users: Report

According to a recent study released on Friday, researchers have seen an increase in malware designed for the Android operating system that aims to spoof the well-known AI chatbot ChatGPT in order to attack smartphone users.

These malware versions, which infected people who were interested in utilizing the ChatGPT tool, arose concurrently with the publication by OpenAI of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, according to researchers from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42.

A Meterpreter Trojan in the form of a “SuperGPT” software and a “ChatGPT” app that sends messages to premium-rate lines in Thailand are the two current malware varieties discovered by researchers.

The researchers also discovered a malicious Android Package Kit (APK) sample, which turned out to be a Trojanized version of a genuine application, according to the paper.

The official application is an AI assistant created using ChatGPT’s most current release. The malicious version of this application gives the actor remote access to an Android device if exploitation is successful.

The researchers also came up another group of APK malware variants. The virus first seems to be showing a website with information about ChatGPT. The research claims that below this threat, there is a malicious intention.

All of these APK examples also have the OpenAI logo as their program icon, which furthers the false claim that this application is related to the ChatGPT AI tool. This OpenAI logo is commonly linked to ChatGPT.

These APK malware variants have the ability to send SMS messages to Thailand premium-rate lines.

Premium-rate phone numbers are utilized in return for a service (such as users contributing information) and are more expensive than standard phone numbers.

The company that runs it gets the revenue, but the research warned that this may also be misused to commit fraud and frauds.