Clawdbot’s rename to Moltbot sparks impersonation campaign

Clawdbot’s rename to Moltbot sparks impersonation campaign www.malwarebytes.com/blog/thre… Following a trademark dispute that forced the viral AI assistant Clawdbot to rebrand as Moltbot, threat actors rapidly launched an impersonation campaign targeting the project and its growing user base. Within days of the rename, researchers observed typosquatted domains and a cloned GitHub repository designed to impersonate the project’s creator. While the legitimate open-source codebase remains clean, the surrounding infrastructure tied to the fake domains raises concerns about potential supply-chain abuse. Clawdbot, created by Peter Steinberger and described as “Claude with hands,” gained rapid traction in early 2026. The self-hosted assistant enables users to control their computers through messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord. After Anthropic objected to the original name, the project was rebranded to Moltbot. Malwarebytes warns that the incident illustrates how quickly threat actors capitalize on high-visibility open-source projects. Rapid growth, brand transitions and public attention can create ideal conditions for typosquatting, repository cloning and downstream supply-chain compromise attempts.