TRICK OR CLICK: Watch out for rise of ClickFix attacks
TRICK OR CLICK: Watch out for rise of ClickFix attacks
The Information Security Office keeps our ear to the ground in search of the latest and “greatest” in security news so that we can let Miami users know what to look out for. Here’s something new to keep on your radar!
Search engine scam: ClickFix in Bing ads
Hackers are now using search engines to trick internet users into clicking on malicious links and downloading software to compromise their machines. Cybersecurity researchers at Push Security are calling it “Adception,” according to BleepingComputer, and it’s definitely tricky. These links are designed to get past the built-in security checks in your internet browser – they’ll look just like the “sponsored” ads that you get at the top when you do a search. These links use a trusted domain to get around that check and then redirect victims to a malicious download page. (Read more about this at BleepingComputer.)
This is an example of something called a “ClickFix” social engineering attack, which essentially just means that hackers try to get you to click on something you think is legitimate in order to run malicious code on your computer.
This malicious “hack” is nefarious for all of the reasons listed above, but also because it hits many of our big-ticket topics for this month and beyond: artificial intelligence, social engineering, bad links, and more.
These types of attacks are not new. CrowdStrike reported an attack where employees at a financial services firm were getting Zoom links to fake meetings that had not actually been scheduled – they were ClickFixes.
These ClickFix scams present errors that claim an application needs to be repaired, or your browser verified – basically, an excuse for you to open your command line application and run a line of malicious code.
How do you avoid ClickFixes?
According to Push Security, ClickFix schemes accounted for 67 percent of detected browser-based attacks in August 2026. They’re everywhere! And not very many of them are coming from email – most are through search engines like Google and Bing, as evidenced by the example above.
So how do you avoid something like this? Our recommendations here are in line with many other recommendations we have made over the years: Stop. Validate. Delete. Take your time when searching for things on the internet – don’t click the first result on your Google search unless you’re absolutely sure about the source, and certainly never copy and run any code just because a website says you should.
In fact, if you are asked to open a command line interface and input code by anyone, treat this request with suspicion. Just to be safe, email InfoSec@MiamiOH.edu and we can help you determine whether it’s legit.