"FakeAgent": Malicious Claude Artifact and Bing Ads Deliver SectopRAT to 29 Organizations

Corporate users searching Bing for the Claude desktop application; at least 29 organizations compromised between July 21 and July 22, 2026

A sponsored Bing result pointed at a public Artifact hosted on Anthropic's own claude.ai domain, a shareable page anyone can publish. Because the first hop sat on a legitimate vendor domain, the lure carried unusual trust. The Artifact redirected to attacker infrastructure serving a fake `ClaudeDesktop.exe` installer that dropped SectopRAT, a .NET remote access trojan that harvests saved passwords, browser cookies, autofill data, payment card details, and files, and that uses VMProtect and other anti-analysis techniques. The malicious page accumulated about 7,100 views before it was reported and taken down; investigators found command-and-control data stored on the Ethereum blockchain

A user-generated content hosting feature on a trusted AI vendor domain, combined with paid search placement, was used to launder the reputation of a malware download; there was no compromise of Anthropic systems. Documented by Huntress