More than 100 subscription sites selling AI and creative software trace back to a single commercial website starter kit, according to research published by Malwarebytes Labs. Some of them imitate tools including GPT-6 Astra, DaVinci Resolve, PixAI and OpenCut, and one borrows the Omegle name even though that service shut down in 2023. The operator or group behind them is suspected to be one person or a closely connected cluster, based on shared files and related developer emails.
The prices are the draw and the risk. Plans across the sites run from under $10 a month to more than $2,000 a year, and annual subscriptions are charged as a single payment, with at least one exceeding $2,000. The fake GPT-6 Astra tiers cost $89, $169 and $249 per month. Some plans state that unused credits expire after a set period, and card details may be handed to a third-party payment provider rather than the site itself.
The pages look convincing in part because they avoid the usual phishing tells. Sign-in runs through Google's genuine page, so the password is entered on Google, and the examined sites request a name, email address and profile picture, with no request for Gmail or Google Drive access. The Google consent screen shows the app and developer details. Malwarebytes Labs found no malware downloads on the sites it examined.
What buyers get is less clear. On the examined sites there is no way to test the product before paying, and the landing page controls stay inactive until someone signs in. Signing in leads to a pricing page rather than the tool itself. The advertised products span voice cloning, video editors, study apps and AI assistants, including a VoicesCloning tool that claims to copy a voice from a ten-second recording.
The sites are built on the same legitimate starter kit, which comes with accounts, billing, file storage and admin tools. The kit costs $249 as a one-time purchase, and extra templates run about $2 each. Its vendor advertises that a product can be launched within an hour. Several of the sites still carry starter kit demo material, and one relabeled a demo business list as its own customers.
Those leftovers show up in other ways. One site claimed more than 12 million users, while another displayed well-known companies as customers without evidence. Astra AI says more than 12 million students use its study tools. On one site, placeholder text remained inside a paid plan name. Identical file names across the sites point to the same software version being reused.
Trying to identify the seller is difficult. No registered company names or business addresses turned up, and support contacts were free webmail addresses rather than brand domains. Developer emails share the same name with small numeric differences, and often the only contact is an email on the site's own domain. That leaves refunds, charge challenges and problem resolution potentially hard to pursue.
The findings follow a run of similar scams. Lookalike Bitrefill domains were catching search traffic for gift cards, and phishing texts targeting Revolut customers appeared days after a data breach disclosure. Earlier in the month, researchers described a new Android trojan that uses live AI to work through the accessibility tree. The sites also mean users may hand sensitive material to an owner they cannot identify.
