Social media ads propagating a downloadable variant of Google’s AI chatbot, Bard
Following the recent launch of Google Bard on 10 May 2023, a flurry of advertisements (here and here) have emerged on social media promoting a ‘downloadable version’ of Google’s AI chatbot. These posts provide a link to what they claim is this downloadable version. This article looks at the authenticity of these claims. [...] These advertisements purport that the provided link offers access to a downloadable version of Google Bard AI. However, considering that Bard is an AI chatbot accessible via a web browser or as a Chrome extension, it’s ill-advised to download any content from such unverified and potentially unsafe sources. The provided link redirects to a website with a URL entirely different from the official Bard AI website, and it hosts a downloadable .EXE file, which could be a form of malicious software. Moreover, there’s a lack of trustworthy online information that corroborates the existence of a downloadable version of Bard AI. In fact, news reports (here and here) warn that cybercriminals are exploiting compromised verified (and unverified) social media accounts to bait users into downloading malware.