Threats Tagged 'vidar stealer'

A financially motivated campaign identified in April 2026 delivers Vidar stealer and XMRig cryptocurrency miner to victims worldwide through malvertising. Attackers distribute password-protected archives impersonating cracked software, using Go-compiled loaders built with the Factory-v3 framework. The malware employs sophisticated evasion techniques including rogue Authenticode certificates mimicking JustWatch and BleacherReport, file-size inflation to hundreds of MB with null bytes, and AMSI bypass. Once executed, Vidar stealer exfiltrates browser credentials, cookies and cryptocurrency wallets to C2 infrastructure, while XMRig mines Monero cryptocurrency. The operation establishes persistence through registry modifications, scheduled tasks and startup folder scripts. The threat actor, operating under the moniker X3D MINER, primarily targets victims in the U.S. and European Union through a dual-monetization scheme combining credential theft and cryptojacking.

MediumMalwareUnited States#vidar stealer#cryptojacking#vidar

Threat actors are increasingly leveraging the global interest in artificial intelligence by impersonating popular AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek, and Claude in social engineering campaigns. These operations span phishing attacks, malvertising, and search engine optimization-driven tactics that ultimately lead to credential theft, financial fraud, or malware infections. Observed campaigns include ChatGPT-themed phishing collecting credit card data targeting South Africa, Claude-themed adversary-in-the-middle attacks harvesting credentials and access tokens, malvertising campaigns distributing Vidar stealer through fake AI plugin downloads, and fraudulent DeepSeek V4 installers on GitHub. The initial access broker Storm-3075 has been identified employing AI-themed malvertising, while the financially motivated actor Fox Tempest provides malware-signing-as-a-service to enhance payload legitimacy. These campaigns combine traditional social engineering tactics with AI branding to improve success...

Cybercriminals are exploiting the recent Claude Code leak incident by using it as a social engineering tactic to deliver malware through GitHub repositories. The attackers have created trojanized versions of the leaked Claude source code, distributing malicious payloads including Vidar stealer version 18.7 and GhostSocks trojan. The campaign demonstrates rapid opportunistic exploitation of high-profile security incidents, with compromised repositories serving as delivery mechanisms. Organizations are advised to implement Zero Trust architecture to mitigate risks from shadow AI instances and trojanized Claude agents. Multiple GitHub repositories have been identified hosting the malicious code, with command and control infrastructure established across multiple IP addresses and domains.