https://eclecticlight.co/2026/01/30/more-malware-from-google-search/ Skip to content [eclecticlight] The Eclectic Light Company Macs & painting - No AI content Main navigation Menu * Downloads * Freeware * M-series Macs * Mac Problems * Mac articles * Macs * Art hoakley January 30, 2026 General, Life, Macs, Technology More malware from Google search [aitrap5] Little more than a month after I reported that Google's AI was offering links to malicious scripts, that is happening again, with a slight twist. I'm grateful to Olena of Clario for informing me that there's a new campaign in progress to deliver AMOS (alias SOMA) stealers to Macs. You can read Vladyslav Kolchin's account of this in his blog post. Vladyslav has discovered these in forged Apple-like sites linked from docs.google.com and business.google.com, as well as in articles posted on Medium. I had success in finding the last of those, which appeared at the top of Google's sponsored results when searching for how to clear cache on macos tahoe. [mediummw1] That took me to Clear Mareks' stories in medium.com, where there's the familiar ploy to get us to paste a malicious command into Terminal. On another occasion, you might be presented with a page claiming to be official Apple Support, although it obviously isn't. [mediummw2] This is almost identical to the previous attack via ChatGPT, and even the base-64 obfuscation is very similar. [mediummw3] This downloaded and ran an AMOS stealer, which unusually didn't seem too bothered about being run in a locked-down virtual machine. [mediummw4] It immediately started copying the contents of my Documents folder to "FileGrabber", and wrote several hidden files to the top level of my Home folder, including: * .agent, an AppleScript to run the theft * .mainHelper, the main Mach-O binary * .pass, my password in plain text. Those appear the same as the version of AMOS delivered using last year's ChatGPT deception. In addition to seeking access to the Documents folder, the malware asked for access to Notes. [aitrap7] The messages are the same. First, distrust everything you see in search engines. Assess what they return critically, particularly anything that's promoted. It's promoted for a reason, and that's money, so before you click on any link ask how that's trying to make money from you. Next, check the provenance and authenticity of where that click takes you. In this case, it was to a Medium article that had been poisoned to trick you. When you're looking for advice, look for a URL that's part of a site you recognise as a reputable Mac specialist. Never follow a shortened link without expanding it using a utility like Link Unshortener from the App Store, rather than one of the potentially malicious sites that claims to perform that service. When you think you've found a solution, don't follow it blindly, be critical. Never run any command in Terminal unless it comes from a reputable source that explains it fully, and you have satisfied yourself that you understand exactly what it does. In this case the command provided was obfuscated to hide its true action, and should have rung alarm bells as soon as you saw it. If you were to spare a few moments to read what it contains, you would have seen the command curl, which is commonly used by malware to fetch their payloads without any quarantine xattr being attached to them. Even though the rest of the script had been concealed by base-64 encoding, that shouts out that this is malicious. Why can't macOS protect you from this? Because at each step you have been tricked into bypassing its protections. Terminal isn't intended to be a place for the innocent to paste obfuscated commands inviting you to surrender your password and download executable code to exploit your Mac. curl isn't intended to allow malware to arrive without being put into quarantine. And ad hoc signatures aren't intended to allow that malicious code to be executed. Maybe it's appropriate that Marek's disease is chicken herpes. Share this: * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads * Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * Like Loading... Related Posted in General, Life, Macs, Technology and tagged AMOS, Google, malware, Medium, security, stealer. Bookmark the permalink. 19Comments Add yours 1. 1 Sabino Maggi's avatar Sabino Maggi on January 30, 2026 at 11:48 am Reply There is another version of the Medium "article" here, [link removed] LikeLiked by 1 person + 2 hoakley's avatar hoakley on January 30, 2026 at 11:51 am Reply Thank you, but I have removed that link: please do not post links here to potentially malicious sites. Howard. LikeLike o 3 Sabino Maggi's avatar Sabino Maggi on January 30, 2026 at 11:56 am Reply Sorry, you are right. But people who come here are knowledgeable, which is why I thought the link was OK. In any case, I have reported the story to Medium's staff. LikeLiked by 1 person # 4 hoakley's avatar hoakley on January 30, 2026 at 12:00 pm Thank you for reporting it. Howard. LikeLike 2. 5 Dakotamoons's avatar Dakotamoons on January 30, 2026 at 3:00 pm Reply Wow. Diabolical. Thank you Howard for the heads up. At least you get a warning pop-up, right? LikeLiked by 1 person + 6 hoakley's avatar hoakley on January 30, 2026 at 5:00 pm Reply Yes, I saw three legit ones, the sort we have got used to clicking through to allow access to private data. But if you had already got that far, some of your sensitive data had already been stolen. Howard. LikeLike 3. 7 cleX's avatar cleX on January 30, 2026 at 4:52 pm Reply Thanks for the useful article. I think that when you said "Terminal command the you will" you meant "Terminal command that you will" showing in the Mac home page headline text. LikeLiked by 1 person + 8 hoakley's avatar hoakley on January 30, 2026 at 4:58 pm Reply Thank you - corrected. Howard. LikeLike 4. 9 JeffSyrop's avatar JeffSyrop on January 30, 2026 at 9:27 pm Reply Thanks for this important article. I should have known better than to trust ChatGPT when it gave me a terminal command. I think in my case, it was simple enough that I knew that it would do what ChatGPT said it would: allow me to take 72 dpi screenshots on my MacBook. But reading your article, I realized that my normal hacking awareness was completely turned off, and I blindly trusted ChatGPT. Never again! If given a useful script, I'll check it out first before running it. LikeLiked by 1 person + 10 hoakley's avatar hoakley on January 30, 2026 at 10:01 pm Reply Thank you, Jeff. It's a sad state of affairs, but so important now. Howard. LikeLiked by 1 person 5. 11 blacksmithtb's avatar blacksmithtb on February 8, 2026 at 11:31 pm Reply Seems like it might be reasonable to encourage using homebrew to install desktop apps with brew install -cask $APP_NAME as safer than random-possibly-hostile-downloads? LikeLiked by 1 person + 12 hoakley's avatar hoakley on February 9, 2026 at 11:09 am Reply Thank you. You should never download anything that might be "random-possible-hostile", surely? If it doesn't come from a trusted source, don't touch it. Howard. LikeLike 6. 13 bart tie's avatar bart tie on February 9, 2026 at 11:15 am Reply Do you have an IOC list for this malware?? LikeLiked by 1 person + 14 hoakley's avatar hoakley on February 9, 2026 at 11:20 am Reply They're essentially the same as those detailed by Ashenbrenner and Semon - it's just another slight variant AFAIK. Howard. LikeLike 7. 15 Dave's avatar Dave on February 9, 2026 at 3:22 pm Reply The best way to avoid malware in sponsored links? uBlock Origin. LikeLiked by 1 person + 16 hoakley's avatar hoakley on February 9, 2026 at 3:29 pm Reply Thank you. I'd be interested to how it blocks this malware embedded in a Medium article. It also unfortunately can't be used with Safari, I gather. Howard. LikeLike o 17 Lorem's avatar Lorem on February 9, 2026 at 4:49 pm Reply uBlock Origin Lite for macOS Safari now exists at least. LikeLiked by 1 person 8. 18 Andrea's avatar Andrea on February 9, 2026 at 6:00 pm Reply What sould i do if i accidentally clicked the "Allow" button when ".mainhelper" asked to access Finder? Then I clicked "Don't Allow" when it asked me to access notes. LikeLiked by 1 person + 19 hoakley's avatar hoakley on February 9, 2026 at 6:14 pm Reply Shut your Mac down immediately and contact Apple Support or a security expert. Be prepared to cancel or change anything stored in the secrets on your Mac, including bank/credit cards, passwords such as your Apple Account, and anything that might lose you money if stolen. Howard. 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