Fake Moltbot AI assistant just spreads malware - so AI fans, watch out for scams

• Hackers published fake VSCode extension posing as Moltbot AI assistant
• Extension carried trojan using remote desktop and layered loaders
• Attack quickly detected and stopped, but Moltbot’s site flagged dangerous

Hackers have hijacked the good name of Moltbot and used it to deliver malware to countless unsuspecting users - but fortunately, the attack was quickly spotted and stopped.

Moltbot is an open source personal AI assistant software which runs locally on a user’s computer or server (as opposed to cloud-based alternatives) which lets users interact with large language models (LLM) and automate different tasks. However, since it runs locally with deep system access, some security researchers urged users to be careful, as misconfigurations could expose sensitive data and lead to different hacking attempts.

Moltbot was originally called Clawdbot, but was recently renamed to avoid trademark issues, and is one of the more popular AI tools out ...