"Send me a quick text"

Attackers abused phishing emails carrying shortcut files inside archives to deploy a legitimate crash-reporting executable paired with a malicious library. The library hijacked normal functions, retrieved encoded payloads hidden in GitHub, Quora, and Microsoft Tech Community profiles, and then redirected the victim system to GitHub raw content pages hosting encrypted shellcode. Once decrypted, the shellcode injected Cobalt Strike Beacon into memory, giving attackers full command-and-control inside the network.

Defensive Actions

• Monitor executables loading unsigned or unusual libraries.
• Inspect outbound traffic to trusted platforms for encoded or repetitive fetches.
• Detect reflective injection and executables that relaunch with hidden parameters.
• Harden phishing defenses with archive and shortcut file scanning.

Key IOCs

• C2: moeodincovo[.]com/divide/mail/SUVVJRQO8QRC
• Hosting platforms abused: GitHub repositories, Quora profiles, Microsoft Tech Community pages, Russian social networks

Detection & Monitoring Focus

• Hunt for abnormal library loads in crash-reporting or diagnostic executables.
• Flag repeated HTTP requests to social media or developer sites fetching encoded data.
• Track reflective memory injection techniques often tied to Cobalt Strike.

Tools & Infrastructure

• Legitimate crash-reporting utility hijacked with a malicious library
• Trusted platforms (GitHub, Quora, Microsoft Tech Community) abused as staging points
• Final payload: Cobalt Strike Beacon

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