In the wild
Realized harm
Claude Fraud: infostealer campaign distributing a fake 'Claude Code plugin' VS Code extension and fake Claude docs pages
AIR-2026-0076 AIR record · 2026-03-claude-fraud-fake-plugin
A real party was affected. This incident caused actual consequences, not a demonstrated capability.
From the supporting source
Claude Fraud is an active, multi-variant malware campaign actively targeting developers and security professionals who use AI coding tools.blog.7ai.com
The record
Disclosed
2026-03-17
Occurred
2026-02
Vendor
impersonating Anthropic
Product
Fake Claude Code plugin (VS Code extension) and fake Claude download/doc pages
Risk domain
Access control and permissions › Credential theft
Also touches
Data exfiltration channels
System type
Generative model
Who acted
AI was the target (contested) — brand-impersonating malvertising delivering an infostealer
Attack surface
Skill / plugin
Autonomy level
Assistant
Initial vector
Malvertising and brand impersonation of agent tooling
Impact type
Credential theft, Data exfiltration
Confidence
High
Submitted by
EAI Internal
Crosswalk
- OWASP Agentic Top 10 (2026)
- ASI03 – Identity and Privilege Abuse
- MITRE ATLAS
- AML.T0012 – Valid Accounts
- NIST AI RMF
- MEASURE 2.7
- EU AI Act
- Article 13
- ISO/IEC
- TR 24028; 42001; 23894
- AIUC-1
- B. Security
- Scope
- tool failure
- Mitigation
- Use secure credential storage; Implement short-lived tokens.
- Taxonomy
- Enkrypt AI agent risk taxonomy · Black-Box Red Teaming of Agentic AI: A Taxonomy-Driven Framework for Automated Risk Discovery
Blast radius
15,600+ victims documented publicly; 3 confirmed incidents in 7AI-monitored environments
Capability abused
Defense & remediation
Recorded defense
marketplace and ad-network review
Guardrail kinds
Unknown
Guardrail outcome
Silent
Fix shipped
takedowns; operators redeployed on Squarespace-hosted lures
Taxonomy & references
Curator notes
7AI writeup; corroborating public research from Moonlock Lab and AdGuard. macOS variant delivered MacSync infostealer via Google-ad-served fake Claude download; Windows variants were malicious VS Code extensions masquerading as the Claude Code plugin at a large technology company.
Supporting sources
Cite as
Enkrypt AI. "Claude Fraud: infostealer campaign distributing a fake 'Claude Code plugin' VS Code extension and fake Claude docs pages". AIR, AIR-2026-0076. https://agentincident.vercel.app/i/AIR-2026-0076/ (accessed 2026-10-19).