Mac owners are seeing ChatGPT apps flagged as malware
getty
Mac owners are firing up their computers to discover warning messages that the ChatGPT app contains malware. However, the warnings are not as serious as they might seem.
Many Mac owners will have seen the ChatGPT warning message when they started their computer over the past couple of days.
The message reads: “Malware Blocked and Moved to Bin”
“ChatGPT.app was not opened because it contains malware. This action did not harm your Mac.”
This ChatGPT malware warning message is appearing on Macs
Barry Collins
I saw this warning on my own MacBook this morning, and the ChatGPT app had indeed been moved to the Bin.
The warnings are not only being applied to the ChatGPT app, but also the ChatGPT Atlas browser, as spotted by this user on X.
ChatGPT Malware Warning Messages
Why are these warning messages appearing? And why is everyone not seeing them?
It seems this warning relates to a security incident involving ChatGPT that my colleague David Winder covered last month.
A third-party library that was being used by OpenAI software was linked to North Korean threat actors. That library pushed out malicious updates that resulted in the revocation of the company’s macOS security certificates.
ChatGPT app users were at the time advised to update their apps to prevent them becoming disabled by macOS, but if you haven’t updated your ChatGPT/ChatGPT Atlas apps in the meantime, they will have been automatically revoked by macOS.
As OpenAI explained on its site: “We have stopped new software notarizations using the old certificate, so new software signed with the old certificate by an unauthorized third party would be blocked by default by macOS security protections unless a user explicitly bypasses them. Once we fully revoke our certificate on May 8 2026, new downloads and launches of apps signed with the previous certificate will be blocked by macOS security protections.”
The easiest way around the problem is to simply redownload the ChatGPT apps from OpenAI, as they will automatically have the new certificate applied and won’t be blocked.
In the meantime, relax. ChatGPT hasn’t dumped any malware on your Mac, despite those rather worrying warnings.
