The project leader of Homebrew, the popular Mac software installation tool, is calling out Google following revelations that a malicious search ad helped set the stage for Binance’s $6.3 billion cryptocurrency hack.
Mike McQuaid, who has maintained Homebrew since 2009, accused Google of repeatedly failing to address malicious ads impersonating the software.
“We at Homebrew [have] been warning Google about this for years,” McQuaid wrote on X. “Sadly, they are too addicted to making money selling malware ads.”
Why This Matters
As AdTechRadar previously reported, the Binance hack reportedly began in June when an engineer downloaded a compromised version of Homebrew after clicking a malicious Google Search ad.
That exposed members of Binance’s wallet infrastructure team and helped attackers gain access to systems they later exploited to steal billions in cryptocurrency.
McQuaid’s comments suggest the problem was hardly new. Homebrew has been warning Google about malicious ads impersonating its software for years, raising questions about why these campaigns continue to appear.
Experts React
McQuaid didn’t mince words in his post, calling on Google’s leadership to intervene.
“If someone senior enough at Google wants to talk about this or, ideally, just fix the fucking problem: I’m easily contactable online,” he wrote.
Our Take
This is becoming an increasingly difficult problem for Google to explain away.
When the people responsible for legitimate software have spent years warning about fraudulent ads impersonating their products, it’s fair to ask whether the platform is doing enough to stop them. Especially, of course, after one of those ads helped enable a multibillion-dollar breach.
