{"id":10205,"date":"2026-10-29T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T13:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=10205"},"modified":"2026-10-29T13:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T13:05:00","slug":"fake-anthropic-ai-previews-lure-in-overeager-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/?p=10205","title":{"rendered":"Fake Anthropic AI previews lure in overeager employees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Everyone wants to know what Anthropic is up to, and hackers are gleefully exploiting the fact.<\/p>\n

New research from cybersecurity company Cofense describes a phishing campaign that hooks overeager enterprise users by making them think they are getting an invite to a private invite-only Anthropic preview.<\/p>\n

In reality, adversarial actors<\/a> are trying to steal Google and Microsoft login credentials, exploiting video teleconferencing software GoTo Webinar branding to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sells exclusivity,\u201d said Frank Dickson<\/a> of Dickson Research. \u201cFear of missing out is the oldest lure in the book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every organization is trying to figure out where AI fits, he noted, and a private preview of Anthropic\u2019s newest technology is exactly the invitation an ambitious employee would want to accept. \u201cThe attackers did not pick Anthropic at random,\u201d he said. \u201cThey picked whatever is hottest in the news cycle. Next month, it may be another name.\u201d<\/p>\n

How attackers lure users with spoofed Anthropic invites<\/h2>\n

GoTo Webinar is a widely used platform, and its meeting invitation emails are typically not blocked by security tools<\/a>. The Cofense researchers found that attackers are exploiting this fact by sending what seems to be an invitation email from a legitimate sender; when users click on the link to register for the fake webinar, they are instead sent to a compromised URL.<\/p>\n

The email offers what the researchers call a \u201ctantalizing\u201d offer: \u201cThis private, invitation-only virtual session brings together a select group of participants to a focused conversation on AI systems, research, and the future of frontier models,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n

A URL shortener circumvents email security tools, and the attackers use subdomains and dashes (-) to hide the malicious URL. The link itself appears to have been generated by Zapier, a legitimate company whose tools are designed to work with Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI compatible with Model Context Protocol (MCP).<\/p>\n

The email sender address appears to be customercare@gotowebinar[.]com (GoTo Webinar\u2019s website is actually www.goto.com<\/a>). The text contains no obvious spelling errors, and the email contains GoTo Webinar branding. However, the researchers noted, the email sender\u2019s name is \u201cAustin from nthropic,\u201d with the \u201cA\u201d missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough this is a small misspelling, it is still a useful warning sign,\u201d they pointed out.<\/p>\n

If the phishing link<\/a> is clicked, a Cloudflare CAPTCHA page appears, and must be completed before the login prompt is presented. This serves as the first of two checkpoints to prevent security tools from scanning attackers\u2019 websites.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause CAPTCHAs are common on legitimate websites, phishing recipients may believe all is well and everything is secure,\u201d the researchers explained.<\/p>\n

Once the CAPTCHA is completed, victims are led to a Zoom-spoofing invitation page. If they want to \u201cattend\u201d the fake event, they must register, and they are prompted to enter their work email address. When they click \u201cContinue with Google\u201d or \u201cContinue with Microsoft,\u201d yet another CAPTCHA page appears.<\/p>\n

Both CAPTCHA pages seem to be good at detecting and blocking analysis by VPN services, scanners, Tor browsers, and other security tools, the researchers noted. Also, because there are two distinct CAPTCHA pages, such tools may not be able to follow every step in the attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cA CAPTCHA was built to keep bots out,\u201d Dickson pointed out. \u201cHere, it keeps the security scanners out and lets the victims in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fake Google and Microsoft login pages<\/a> differ a bit, however. The spoofed Google page does not capture passwords, only usernames, which the researchers surmise is due to a misconfiguration; the spoofed Microsoft page does collect both usernames and passwords.<\/p>\n

But both are \u201cremarkably similar\u201d to their respective legitimate pages, and their subdomains are \u201ctricky.\u201d The fake Google URL is goo[.]gle-access-eventregister[.]icu, while the Microsoft URL closely mimics real Office and Sharepoint domains, using office[.]com-access-sharepoint[.]com.<\/p>\n

Once credentials are submitted, neither login offers a confirmation message, nor does it redirect to legitimate vendor pages. But by that point, attackers have already succeeded at exfiltrating credentials. That means they could compromise an account, access the sensitive documents in that account, or use it as an initial attack vector to further infiltrate the enterprise, the researchers explained.<\/p>\n

They advised checking if the branding of a message remains consistent from the email to a login page, searching for small inconsistencies such as minor misspellings, and reminding employees that both the URL and domain determine whether a login page is legitimate.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the logos and design of the page may look correct, threat actors are skilled at mimicry,\u00a0 especially now with the use of AI,\u201d the researchers noted.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the employees\u2019 fault<\/h2>\n

The AI industry\u2019s habit of gated previews and waitlists does not help in these situations, Dickson noted; it trains people to expect exactly this kind of invitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cStart with the cracks the attackers left showing,\u201d he advised: The sender supposedly came from \u201cnthropic,\u201d the email carried GoTo Webinar branding, the registration spoofed a Zoom meeting page, and the login pages were from Google or Microsoft. That\u2019s three brands in three clicks, he noted.<\/p>\n

The fake login domains, like office[.]com-access-sharepoint[.]com, are built to be skimmed, not read, he pointed out. And, while the Google page collected only usernames, which may be a configuration error, the threat actors behind this campaign will likely fix that.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraining helps, but I would not hang the defense on an employee squinting at a URL at 4:45 on a Friday,\u201d Dickson said; how much a stolen password is worth is a leadership decision, not a test the employee fails.<\/p>\n

Phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA) such as passkeys makes a stolen password far less valuable, he noted. But enterprises ultimately have a short to-do list to allow them to defend themselves from this sort of scam, Dickson said:<\/p>\n

Verify any AI preview invitation through an account team or a known contact.<\/p>\n

Treat branding that changes from email to meeting page to login page as a red flag.<\/p>\n

Roll out phishing-resistant MFA. If someone entered credentials on one of these phishing login pages, reset them and review that account\u2019s activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cBottom line: This campaign uses trusted tools to defeat defenses built on trust,\u201d Dickson said. \u201cThe employee should not be the last line of defense.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone wants to know what Anthropic is up to, and hackers are gleefully exploiting the fact. New research from cybersecurity company Cofense describes a phishing campaign that hooks overeager enterprise users by making them think they are getting an invite to a private invite-only Anthropic preview. In reality, adversarial actors are trying to steal Google […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cybersecurityinfocus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}