Fake CAPTCHA on University of Seoul website tricks visitors into running malicious commands
From the afternoon of October 30 through November 3, a fake CAPTCHA appeared on the University of Seoul's official website, prompting visitors to execute malicious commands. The university became aware of the incident on the morning of November 3 and took action to stop the screen from appearing from 2 p.m. A current student reported following the instructions, and the university advised disconnecting from the internet and formatting affected PCs, among other measures, and pledged assistance with formatting. The entry point and cause remain under investigation, and the actual extent of infections has not been confirmed.
Key facts
- Affected organization
- University of Seoul
- Incident type
- Malware
- Occurred / detected
- 2026-10-30
- Scale of damage
- Not confirmed
- Cause / method
- A ClickFix attack using a fake CAPTCHA to trick users into executing malicious commands
- Location
- South Korea
Timeline
- A fake CAPTCHA prompting visitors to execute malicious commands began appearing on the university's official website in the afternoon.
- The university became aware of the incident in the morning, blocked the fake verification screen from 2 p.m., and advised those who had executed the commands to disconnect from the internet and format their PCs, among other measures.
- The ClickFix attack technique became known, while the actual extent of infections remained unconfirmed.
7 related reports
The summary and key facts are written by AI from related reports and may contain errors. Check the original articles and the organization’s official statements for accurate details.