'Adception': Google search ads for 'claude mac' show bing.com and bounce through Bing's own click-tracking redirect and a hacked retailer site to a fake Claude installer whose copy button swaps Anthropic's install command for a malicious one
Push Security published research on 9 October 2026 into a malvertising chain it calls Adception. A sponsored Google result for the search 'claude mac' listed bing.com as its domain because the ad's destination was a genuine Bing search-result redirect (bing.com/ck/a), which Bing uses to log clicks before forwarding the visitor with a short JavaScript page. Google's ad review therefore approved a link that pointed at another search engine. The Bing redirect led to a compromised WordPress site of a South American retailer, which only forwarded visitors arriving with a Bing referrer and certain browser headers, and on to claude-desk-code[.]com, a convincing fake Claude download page that sends anyone arriving directly to a 404. The page shows Anthropic's real macOS install command, but its copy button puts a different command on the clipboard: it prints a message about downloading Claude while decoding a Base64-hidden address at lake-90[.]com, then pipes a downloaded .dat file straight into zsh. The final payload has not been identified. Push links several other domains to the same ClickFix kit, which it tracks as AcSig, and says the Bing link carried a timestamp from 5 October 2026. Primary: Push Security; wire: BleepingComputer.
- Product
- macOS users searching for AI tools (fake Claude desktop installer)
- Versions
- n/a — malvertising and ClickFix campaign
- Exploited in Australia?
- unknown
- Patch to
- Install Claude and other AI tools only from the vendor's own site typed or bookmarked, never from search ads, and treat any page asking you to paste a command into Terminal as hostile. Block or alert on the listed domains (claude-desk-code[.]com, lake-90[.]com) and on curl piped into zsh or bash from non-admin Mac users; consider ad blocking on managed browsers. If the command was run, isolate the Mac, reset passwords and revoke browser and AI tool sessions.
Primary: Push Security — Analysing a novel malicious redirect and cloaking technique ('Adception', 9 Oct 2026) · BleepingComputer — Hackers abuse Google Ads, Bing redirects to push Claude ClickFix attacks (9 Oct 2026)