On Monday, tech giant Google initiated legal action in a U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, accusing entities of leveraging copyright laws and the artificial intelligence frenzy to deceive the public on Facebook. Court documents, as reported by Reuters, reveal that the scammers utilized social media and deceptive ads featuring Google's logo to dupe individuals into downloading malware, posing as the latest version of Bard, Google's primary artificial intelligence platform. The lawsuit targets two unspecified individuals or groups, with one exploiting the public's enthusiasm for generative AI to disseminate malware, while the other misused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by submitting numerous fraudulent copyright notices to undermine business competitors.
In the submitted documents, Google noted that the scammers presented themselves as "Google AI," "AIGoogle," "AiGoogle," "AIGoogle.Plus," "AIGoogle Bard FB," and "AIGoogleBard" on Facebook. In addition to the misleading advertisements, the fraudulent Google-related social media posts featured fabricated emails and domain names, such as gbard-ai.info and gg-bard-ai.com.
"To heighten the probability of confusion, the defendants employed Google's proprietary typeface and utilized colors resembling Google's multicolor sequence. They also incorporated images that seemingly originated from Google speaking events or depicted Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai," stated Google's attorneys.
The legal action was initiated, Google asserted, to disrupt the deceptive scheme, increase public awareness, and prevent the scammers from inflicting further harm. Google is seeking a jury trial against the accused defendants.
"Today's actions form part of our continuous legal strategy aimed at safeguarding consumers and small businesses while establishing crucial legal precedents in emerging areas of innovation," stated Google. "Establishing clear rules against fraud, scams, and harassment is vital, regardless of the novelty of the setting. We are dedicated to playing our role in protecting internet users from abuse."
A Google spokesperson opted not to comment on the case, directing Decrypt to the company's post regarding the lawsuit. Rather than executing Bard, victims inadvertently initiate an installer for malicious code.
"The malware is crafted to obtain and transmit users' social media login credentials to the defendants, who subsequently access the social media accounts using the pilfered credentials," detailed Google's attorneys in the lawsuit. "As elucidated below, the defendants specifically target users with business and advertiser accounts on a prominent social media platform, often impacting small businesses."
According to Google, the scammers, whose identity remains unknown, seem to be situated in Vietnam and are orchestrating a "prevalent" malware campaign aimed at pilfering social media credentials, with servers located in Los Angeles, California.
As artificial intelligence continues to advance rapidly, cybercriminals are exploiting this technology to craft more intricate online scams. Law enforcement agencies have issued warnings, alerting the public to a surge in extortion facilitated by AI deepfakes.
In the past month, cybersecurity firm SlashNext reported a staggering 1265% increase in phishing emails since the introduction of ChatGPT. "While there has been some debate regarding the true impact of generative AI on cybercriminal activity, our research indicates that threat actors are using tools like ChatGPT to assist in composing sophisticated, targeted business email compromises, and other phishing messages," explained SlashNext CEO Patrick Harr in a previous statement to Decrypt.