Facebook was running ads of malicious apps pretending to be Clubhouse for PC

This is the latest example of cybercriminals jumping onto the bandwagon of popular apps and trying to tailor their malware to take advantage of the popularity.

Recently, a lot of ads for Clubhouse PC app are doing rounds on social media giant Facebook. However, these ads are being run by cybercriminals who are looking to target unsuspecting users with malware. Clubhouse, which is an invite-only mega-exclusive app, only has an iOS app at the moment. As per reports, these ads trace back to some Facebook pages which impersonate the audio chat social media platform.

Once a user clicks on these ads, they are directed to a fake website of Clubhouse, where a mock-up image has also been placed to show what the platform’s PC version looks like, or could have looked like if it were real. The website also has a download link for the alleged PC app for users to download. The app that is then downloaded is a malicious one.

When the user opens this malicious app, it attempts to get in touch with a command and control server, looking for instructions regarding its next move. One of the incidents reportedly showed that the app attempted to infect the machine with ransomware.

However, the fake Clubhouse websites, hosted in Russia, interestingly went offline overnight, which caused the malware to stop as well.

This is the latest example of cybercriminals jumping onto the bandwagon of popular apps and trying to tailor their malware to take advantage of the popularity.

All of the pages that impersonated Clubhouse only had a few likes. Between last Tuesday and Thursday, at least nine different ads for “Clubhouse PC apps” were placed on the social media giant, and it is not clear how they made it through Facebook’s security checks. The ads, however, have now been removed from Facebook’s Ad Library.