Looking into Initial Access Payloads by APT Groups

2025-02-21 Priya Patel

https://prii308.github.io/Looking-into-Initial-Access-Payloads-by-APT-Groups/

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The DPRK-relevant section analyzes a Kimsuky malicious LNK sample used for initial access and payload staging. The shortcut points to mshta.exe, a legitimate Windows utility, and uses obfuscated JavaScript to run PowerShell with execution policy bypass. The PowerShell searches for a specific LNK file by size, extracts hidden data from it after a fixed offset, writes a new script to ProgramData, and launches the staged content. The author reports that the extracted d.ps1 script is obfuscated and downloads a ZIP archive named gs.zip containing the final payload. The blog also compares other APT initial-access examples, but the Kimsuky evidence is specifically centered on LNK abuse, LOLBin execution, PowerShell staging, and simple YARA detection strings.

Indicators of Compromise

Type Value First Seen Last Seen
DOMAIN trycloudflare.com 2025-02-21 2026-05-14
HASH 268640934dd1f0cfe3a365322185885… 2025-02-21 2025-03-19
YARA detect_sidecopy 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
YARA hta_file 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
YARA detect_lnk 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
YARA sidewinder 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
HASH cc90bf946b495aec9133f6c970dc873… 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
HASH 95f5db1826819d8d61b85eec206ec6c… 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
HASH 541039d4eb67935884830657213991b… 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
HASH 47d77499968244911d0179fb858578d… 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
URL https://louise-gzip-think-air.t… 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
URL https://passport.i.ua/login/ 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
URL https://passport.i.ua/login/? 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
URL https://pubad-gov-lk.org-co.net… 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
DOMAIN louise-gzip-think-air.trycloudf… 2025-02-21 2025-02-21
IPv4 102.237.232.209 2025-02-21 2025-02-21

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