Hackers Target AI Users With Malicious Stable Diffusion Tool on Github to Protest 'Art Theft'
Emanuel Maiberg
EMANUEL MAIBERG
·
JUN 11, 2024 AT 11:31 AM
An extension for a popular Stable Diffusion graphical user interface on Github appears to have been stealing users’ login credentials.
Hackers Target AI Users With Malicious Stable Diffusion Tool on Github to Protest 'Art Theft'
A group of hackers that says it believes “AI-generated artwork is detrimental to the creative industry and should be discouraged” is hacking people who are trying to use a popular interface for the AI image generation software Stable Diffusion with a malicious extension for the image generator interface shared on Github.
ComfyUI is an extremely popular graphical user interface for Stable Diffusion that’s shared freely on Github, making it easier for users to generate images and modify their image generation models. ComfyUI_LLMVISION, the extension that was compromised to hack users, is a ComfyUI extension that allowed users to integrate large language models GPT-4 and Claude 3 into the same interface.
The ComfyUI_LLMVISION Github page is currently down, but a Wayback Machine archive of it from June 9 states that it was “COMPROMISED BY NULLBULGE GROUP.”
“Maybe check us out, and maybe think twice about releasing ai tools on such a weakly secured account,” the same archived Github page says.
The page said that it was a legitimate extension until it was compromised, and an archive of its Github page from May 25 shows that it was somewhat active, with 42 stars, four forks, and 12 commits. On its website, the hackers claim that it had control of the extension for “many months,” and they had taken control of ComfyUI_LLMVISION before its creator ever posted it, indicating that it may have contained malicious code the entire time its been up on Github.
Github did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On the ComfyUI subreddit, one user started a thread about the hack on Sunday, and claimed that they have “been personally affected by this. About a week after I installed this package, I got a ton of malicious login notifications on a bunch of services, so I’m absolutely sure that they’re actively using this data.”
On its website, Nullbulge also shared a list of what it claimed is login details for different accounts for hundreds of users harvested from the malicious extension.
vpnMentor, a VPN company that publishes some security research to promote its product, analyzed the malicious extension and claims that it is able to steal crypto wallets, screenshot the user’s screen, expose device information and IP addresses, and steal files that contain certain keywords or extensions.
NullBulge’s own website is also down at the moment, but an archive of it includes an “About Us” section which says they “are a collective of individuals who believe in the importance of protecting artists' rights and ensuring fair compensation for their work.”
Another section on the site’s front page is titled “You Hacked Me/Us/My Website! Why?”
We are sorry we had to do that to you, but we only do it if you have committed one of our sins.
Art theft
Crypto Promotion
AI-generated artwork
Theft from Patreon or other platforms that support artists
Any other form of theft from artists
We don’t know if the hackers in this case are actually taking an anti-AI art ideological stance, or they’re just saying so and hacking whoever they can, or even making fun of that cause. “Nullbulge” refers to a smooth bulge in the genitals area of some furry characters, one of which is featured at the top of the hacking group’s website.
Regardless of their real motivation, the ComfyUI_LLMVISION attack once again highlights that free to download software from Github that’s maintained by individuals or small groups of open source software developers can be a massive security risk. In March, we saw how a malicious actor managed to inject malicious code into a popular compression utility used in many major distributions of Linux.