In today’s evolving cyber threat landscape, threat actors are committed to advancing the sophistication of their attacks. The increasing adoption of essential security features like multifactor authentication (MFA), passwordless solutions, and robust email protections has changed many aspects of the phishing landscape, and threat actors are more motivated than ever to acquire credentials—particularly for enterprise cloud environments. Despite these evolutions, social engineering—the technique of convincing or deceiving users into downloading malware, directly divulging credentials, or more—remains a key aspect of phishing attacks.

Implementing phishing-resistant and passwordless solutions, such as passkeys, can help organizations improve their security stance against advanced phishing attacks. Microsoft is dedicated to enhancing protections against phishing attacks and making it more challenging for threat actors to exploit human vulnerabilities. In this blog, I’ll cover techniques that Microsoft has observed threat actors use for phishing and social engineering attacks that aim to compromise cloud identities. I’ll also share what organizations can do to defend themselves against this constant threat.

While the examples in this blog do not represent the full range of phishing and social engineering attacks being leveraged against enterprises today, they demonstrate several efficient techniques of threat actors tracked by Microsoft Threat Intelligence. Understanding these techniques and hardening your organization with the guidance included here will help contribute to a significant part of your defense-in-depth approach.

Pre-compromise techniques for stealing identities

Modern phishing techniques attempt to defeat authentication flows

Adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM)

Today’s authentication methods have changed the phishing landscape. The most prevalent example is the increase in adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) credential phishing as the adoption of MFA grows. The phish kits available from phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platforms has further increased the impact of AiTM threats; the Evilginx phish kit, for example, has been used by multiple threat actors in the past year, from the prolific phishing operator Storm-0485 to the Russian espionage actor Star Blizzard.

Evilginx is an open-source framework that provides AiTM capabilities by deploying a proxy server between a target user and the website that the user wishes to visit (which the threat actor impersonates). Microsoft tracked Storm-0485 directing targets to Evilginx infrastructure using lures with themes such as payment remittance, shared documents, and fake LinkedIn account verifications, all designed to prompt a quick response from the recipient. Storm-0485 also consistently uses evasion tactics, notably passing initial links through obfuscated Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) URLs to make links harder to identify as malicious.

To protect against AiTM attacks, consider complementing MFA with risk-based Conditional Access policies, available in Microsoft Entra ID Protection, where sign-in requests are evaluated using additional identity-driven signals like IP address location information or device status, among others. These policies use real-time and offline detections to assess the risk level of sign-in attempts and user activities. This dynamic evaluation helps mitigate risks associated with token replay and session hijacking attempts common in AiTM phishing campaigns.

Additionally, consider implementing Zero Trust network security solutions, such as Global Secure Access which provides a unified pane of glass for secure access management of networks, identities, and endpoints.

Device code phishing

Device code phishing is a relatively new technique that has been incorporated by multiple threat actors into their attacks. In device code phishing, threat actors like Storm-2372 exploit the device code authentication flow to capture authentication tokens, which they then use to access target accounts. Storm-1249, a China-based espionage actor, typically uses generic phishing lures—with topics like taxes, civil service, and even book pre-orders—to target high-level officials at organizations of interest. Microsoft has also observed device code phishing being used for post-compromise activity, which are discussed more in the next sections.

At Microsoft, we strongly encourage organizations to block device code flow where possible; if needed, configure Microsoft Entra ID’s device code flow in your Conditional Access policies.

OAuth consent phishing

Another modern phishing technique is OAuth consent phishing, where threat actors employ the Open Authorization (OAuth) protocol and send emails with a malicious consent link for a third-party application. Once the target clicks the link and authorizes the application, the threat actor gains access tokens with the requested scopes and refresh tokens for persistent access to the compromised account. In one OAuth consent phishing campaign recently identified by Microsoft, even if a user declines the requested app permissions (by clicking Cancel on the prompt), the user is still sent to the app’s reply URL, and from there redirected to an AiTM domain for a second phishing attempt.

You can prevent employees from providing consent to specific apps or categories of apps that are not approved by your organization by configuring app consent policies to restrict user consent operations. For example, configure policies to allow user consent only to apps requesting low-risk permissions with verified publishers, or apps registered within your tenant.

Device join phishing

Finally, it’s worth highlighting recent device join phishing operations, where threat actors use a phishing link to trick targets into authorizing the domain-join of an actor-controlled device. Since April 2025, Microsoft has observed suspected Russian-linked threat actors using third-party application messages or emails referencing upcoming meeting invitations to deliver a malicious link containing valid authorization code. When clicked, the link returns a token for the Device Registration Service, allowing registration of the threat actor’s device to the tenant. You can harden against this type of phishing attack by requiring authentication strength for device registration in your environment.

Lures remain an effective phishing weapon

While both end users and automated security measures have become more capable at identifying malicious phishing attachments and links, motivated threat actors continue to rely on exploiting human behavior with convincing lures. As these attacks hinge on deceiving users, user training and awareness of commonly identified social engineering techniques are key to defending against them.

Impersonation lures

One of the most effective ways Microsoft has observed threat actors deliver lures is by impersonating people familiar to the target or using malicious infrastructure spoofing legitimate enterprise resources. In the last year, Star Blizzard has shifted from primarily using weaponized document attachments in emails to spear phishing with a malicious link leading to an AiTM page to target the government, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and academic sectors. The threat actor’s highly personalized emails impersonate individuals from whom the target would reasonably expect to receive emails, including known political and diplomatic figures, making the target more likely to be deceived by the phishing attempt.

QR codes

We have seen threat actors regularly iterating on the types of lure links incorporated into their attacks to make social engineering more effective. As QR codes have become a ubiquitous feature in communications, threat actors have adopted their use as well. For example, over the past two years, Microsoft has seen multiple actors incorporate QR codes, encoded with links to AiTM phishing pages, into opportunistic tax-themed phishing campaigns.

The threat actor Star Blizzard has even leveraged nonfunctional QR codes as a part of a spear-phishing campaign offering target users an opportunity to join a WhatsApp group: the initial spear-phishing email contained a broken QR code to encourage the targeted users to contact the threat actor. Star Blizzard’s follow-on email included a URL that redirected to a webpage with a legitimate QR code, used by WhatsApp for linking a device to a user’s account, giving the actor access to the user’s WhatsApp account.

Use of AI

Threat actors are increasingly leveraging AI to enhance the quality and volume of phishing lures. As AI tools become more accessible, these actors are using them to craft more convincing and sophisticated lures. In a collaboration with OpenAI, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has seen threat actors such as Emerald Sleet and Crimson Sandstorm interacting with large language models (LLMs) to support social engineering operations. This includes activities such as drafting phishing emails and generating content likely intended for spear-phishing campaigns.

We have also seen suspected use of generative AI to craft messages in a large-scale credential phishing campaign against the hospitality industry, based on the variations of language used across identified samples. The initial email contains a request for information designed to elicit a response from the target and is then followed by a more generic phishing email containing a lure link to an AiTM phishing site.

AI helps eliminate the common grammar mistakes and awkward phrasing that once made phishing attempts easier to spot. As a result, today’s phishing lures are more polished and harder for users to detect, increasing the likelihood of successful compromise. This evolution underscores the importance of securing identities in addition to user awareness training.

Phishing risks continue to expand beyond email

Enterprise communication methods have diversified to support distributed workforce and business operations, so phishing has expanded well beyond email messages. Microsoft has seen multiple threat actors abusing enterprise communication applications to deliver phishing messages, and we’ve also observed continued interest by threat actors to leverage non-enterprise applications and social media sites to reach targets.

Teams phishing

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has been closely tracking and responding to the abuse of the Microsoft Teams platform in phishing attacks and has taken action against confirmed malicious tenants by blocking their ability to send messages. The cybercrime access broker Storm-1674, for example, creates fraudulent tenants to create Teams meetings to send chat messages to potential victims using the meeting’s chat functionality; more recently, since November 2024, the threat actor has started compromising tenants and directly calling users over Teams to phish for credentials as well. Businesses can follow our security best practices for Microsoft Teams to further defend against attacks from external tenants.

Leveraging social media

Outside of business-managed applications, employees’ activity on social media sites and third-party communication platforms has widened the digital footprint for phishing attacks. For instance, while the Iranian threat actor Mint Sandstorm primarily uses spear-phishing emails, they have also sent phishing links to targets on social media sites, including Facebook and LinkedIn, to target high-profile individuals in government and politics. Mint Sandstorm, like many threat actors, also customizes and enhances their phishing messages by gathering publicly available information, such as personal email addresses and contacts, of their targets on social media platforms. Global Secure Access (GSA) is one solution that can reduce this type of phishing activity and manage access to social media sites on company-owned devices.

Post-compromise identity attacks

In addition to using phishing techniques for initial access, in some cases threat actors leverage the identity acquired from their first-stage phishing attack to launch subsequent phishing attacks. These follow-on phishing activities enable threat actors to move laterally within an organization, maintain persistence across multiple identities, and potentially acquire access to a more privileged account or to a third-party organization.

You can harden your environment against internal phishing activity by configuring the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Safe Links policy to apply to internal recipients as well as by educating users to be wary of unsolicited documents and to report suspected phishing messages.

AiTM phishing crafted using legitimate company resources

Storm-0539, a threat actor that persistently targets the retail industry for gift card fraud, uses their initial access to a compromised identity to acquire legitimate emails—such as help desk tickets—that serve as templates for phishing emails. The crafted emails contain links directing users to AiTM phishing pages that mimic the federated identity service provider of the compromised organization. Because the emails resemble the organization’s legitimate messages, lead to convincing AiTM landing pages, and are sent from an internal account, they could be highly convincing. In this way, Storm-0539 moves laterally, seeking an identity with access to key cloud resources.

Intra-organization device code phishing

In addition to their use of device code phishing for initial access, Storm-2372 also leverages this technique in their lateral movement operations. The threat actor uses compromised accounts to send out internal emails with subjects such as “Document to review” and containing a device code authentication phishing payload. Because of the way device code authentication works, the payloads only work for 15 minutes, so Microsoft has seen multiple waves of post-compromise phishing attacks as the threat actor searches for additional credentials.

Defending against credential phishing and social engineering

Defending against phishing attacks begins at the primary gateways: email and other communication platforms. Review our recommended settings for Exchange Online Protection and Microsoft Defender for Office 365, or the equivalent for your email security solution, to ensure your organization has established essential defenses and knows how to monitor and respond to threat activity.

A holistic security posture for phishing must also account for the human aspect of social engineering. Investing in user awareness training and phishing simulations is critical for arming employees with the needed knowledge to defend against tried-and-true social engineering methods. Training can also help when threat actors inevitably refine and improve their techniques. Attack simulation training in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, which also includes simulating phishing messages in Microsoft Teams, is one approach to running realistic attack scenarios in your organization.

Hardening credentials and cloud identities is also necessary to defend against phishing attacks. By implementing the principles of least privilege and Zero Trust, you can significantly slow down determined threat actors who may have been able to gain initial access and buy time for defenders to respond. To get started, follow our steps to configure Microsoft Entra with increased security.

As part of hardening cloud identities, authentication using passwordless solutions like passkeys is essential, and implementing MFA remains a core pillar in identity security. Use the Microsoft Authenticator app for passkeys and MFA, and complement MFA with conditional access policies, where sign-in requests are evaluated using additional identity-driven signals. Conditional access policies can also be scoped to strengthen privileged accounts with phishing resistant MFA. Your passkey and MFA policy can be further secured by only allowing MFA and passkey registrations from trusted locations and devices.

Finally, a Security Service Edge solution like Global Secure Access (GSA) provides identity-focused secure network access. GSA can help to secure access to any app or resource using network, identity, and endpoint access controls.

Among Microsoft Incident Response cases over the past year where we identified the initial access vector, almost a quarter incorporated phishing or social engineering. To achieve phishing resistance and limit the opportunity to exploit human behavior, begin planning for passkey rollouts in your organization today, and  at a minimum, prioritize phishing-resistant MFA for privileged accounts as you evaluate the effect of this security measure on your wider organization. In the meantime, use the other defense-in-depth approaches I’ve recommended in this blog to defend against phishing and social engineering attacks.

Stay vigilant and prioritize your security at every step.

Recommendations

Several recommendations were made throughout this blog to address some of the specific techniques being used by threat actors tracked by Microsoft, along with essential practices for securing identities. Here is a consolidated list for your security team to evaluate.

• Configure Microsoft Entra with increased security.
• Use the Microsoft Authenticator app for passkeys and MFA.
• Strengthen privileged accounts with phishing resistant MFA.
• Complement MFA with risk-based Conditional Access policies, where sign-in requests are evaluated using additional identity-driven signals like IP address location information or device status, among others. Implementing Microsoft Entra ID Protection with these policies can automatically block or challenge access based on indicators like unfamiliar sign-in patterns or potential token theft attempts. When combined with Global Secure Access (GSA), organizations can extend this protection by enforcing Conditional Access decisions at the network layer to help secure access to any app or resource.
• Only allowing MFA and passkey registrations from trusted locations and devices.
• Review our recommended settings for Exchange Online Protection and Microsoft Defender for Office 365.
• Use attack simulation training in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, which also includes simulating phishing messages in Microsoft Teams, to run realistic attack scenarios in your organization for educating users.
• Use Global Secure Access to secure access to any app or resource using network, identity, and endpoint access controls.
• Block device code flow where possible; if needed, configure Microsoft Entra ID’s device code flow in your Conditional Access policies.
• Configure app consent policies to restrict user consent operations. For example, configure policies to allow user consent only to apps requesting low-risk permissions with verified publishers, or apps registered within your tenant.
• Require authentication strength for device registration in your environment.
• Follow our security best practices for Microsoft Teams.
• Configure the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Safe Links policy to apply to internal recipients.

At Microsoft, we are accelerating security with our work on the Secure by Default framework. Specific Microsoft-managed policies are enabled for every new tenant and raise your security posture with security defaults that provide a baseline of protection for Entra ID and resources like Office 365.

Learn more  

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog. 

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To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast. 

The post Defending against evolving identity attack techniques appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Over the past year, Microsoft observed the persistent growth and operational sophistication of Lumma Stealer, an infostealer malware used by multiple financially motivated threat actors to target various industries. Our investigation into Lumma Stealer’s distribution infrastructure reveals a dynamic and resilient ecosystem that spans phishing, malvertising, abuse of trusted platforms, and traffic distribution systems. These findings underscore the importance of collaborative efforts to disrupt cybercrime. Microsoft, partnering with others across industry and international law enforcement, recently facilitated a disruption of Lumma infrastructure.

Lumma Stealer (also known as LummaC2) is a malware as a service (MaaS) offering that is capable of stealing data from various browsers and applications such as cryptocurrency wallets and installing other malware. Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracks the threat actor who developed and maintains the Lumma malware, command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, and the Lumma MaaS as Storm-2477. Affiliates who pay Storm-2477 for the service and operate their own Lumma campaigns access a panel to build the malware binary and manage the C2 communications and stolen information. We have observed ransomware threat actors like Octo Tempest, Storm-1607, Storm-1113, and Storm-1674 using Lumma Stealer in campaigns.

Unlike earlier infostealers that relied heavily on bulk spam or exploits, Lumma Stealer exemplifies a shift toward multi-vector delivery strategies. Its operators demonstrate resourcefulness and proficiency in impersonation tactics. The Lumma Stealer distribution infrastructure is flexible and adaptable. Operators continually refine their techniques, rotating malicious domains, exploiting ad networks, and leveraging legitimate cloud services to evade detection and maintain operational continuity. This dynamic structure enables operators to maximize the success of campaigns while complicating efforts to trace or dismantle their activities.

The growth and resilience of Lumma Stealer highlights the broader evolution of cybercrime and underscores the need for layered defenses and industry collaboration to counter threats. In this blog post, we share our analysis of Lumma Stealer and its infrastructure and provide guidance on how users and organizations can protect themselves from this threat. Microsoft remains committed to sharing insights, developing protections, and working with partners across industries to disrupt malicious ecosystems and safeguard users worldwide.

Lumma Stealer delivery techniques

Lumma Stealer leverages a broad and evolving set of delivery vectors. Campaigns often combine multiple techniques, dynamically adapting to evade detection and increase infection success rates. Delivery infrastructure is designed to be ephemeral, shifting rapidly across domains, platforms, and geographies to avoid takedowns.

• Phishing emails: Lumma Stealer emails impersonate known brands and services to deliver links or attachments. These campaigns involve expertly crafted emails designed to evoke urgency, often masquerading as urgent hotel reservation confirmations or pending cancellations. The emails lead victims to cloned websites or malicious servers that deploy the Lumma payload to the targets’ environment.

• Malvertising: Threat actors inject fake advertisements into search engine results, targeting software-related queries such as “Notepad++ download” or “Chrome update.” Clicking these poisoned links leads users to cloned websites that closely mimic legitimate vendors but instead deliver the Lumma Stealer.
• Drive-by download on compromised websites: Threat actors were observed compromising groups of legitimate websites, typically through a particular vulnerability or misconfiguration. They modify site content by inserting malicious JavaScript. The JavaScript runs when sites are visited by unsuspecting users, leading to delivery of a payload, intermediary script, or displaying further lures to convince users to perform an action.
• Trojanized applications: In many campaigns, cracked or pirated versions of legitimate applications are bundled with Lumma binaries and distributed through file-sharing platforms. These modified installers often contain no visible payload during installation, executing the malware silently post-launch.
• Abuse of legitimate services and ClickFix: Public repositories like GitHub are abused and populated with scripts and binaries, often disguised as tools or utilities. A particularly deceptive method involves fake CAPTCHA pages, commonly observed in the ClickFix ecosystem. Targets are instructed to copy malicious commands into their system’s Run utility under the pretense of passing a verification check. These commands often download and execute Lumma directly in memory, using Base64 encoding and stealthy delivery chains.
• Dropped by other malware: Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed other loaders and malware such as DanaBot delivering Lumma Stealer as an additional payload.

All these mechanisms reflect threat actor behavior that prioritizes abuse of user trust, manipulation of legitimate infrastructure, and multi-layered distribution chains designed to evade both technical and human defenses. The following sections discuss some examples of campaigns where the mentioned distribution methods were used to deliver Lumma Stealer.

Drive-by download campaign leveraging EtherHiding and ClickFix to deliver Lumma

In early April 2025, Microsoft observed a cluster of compromised websites leveraging EtherHiding and ClickFix techniques to install Lumma Stealer. EtherHiding is a technique that involves leveraging smart contracts on blockchain platforms like Binance Smart Chain (BSC) to host parts of malicious code. Traditional methods of blocking malicious code, such as IP or domain blocking or content-based detections, are less effective against EtherHiding because the code is embedded in the blockchain. Meanwhile, in the ClickFix technique, a threat actor attempts to take advantage of human problem-solving tendencies by displaying fake error messages or prompts that instruct target users to fix issues by copying, pasting, and launching commands that eventually result in the download of malware.

In this campaign, the JavaScript injected into compromised websites directly contacted BSC to retrieve the ClickFix code and lure, which was then presented to the target. Users needed to click the “I’m not a robot” prompt, at which point a command was copied into their clipboard. Users were then instructed to paste and launch this command via the Windows Run prompt. The command downloaded and initiated further code using mshta from check.foquh[.]icu.

Email campaign targeting organizations in Canada to deliver Lumma Stealer

On April 7, 2025, Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed an email campaign consisting of thousands of emails targeting organizations in Canada. The emails used invoice lures for a fitness plan or an online education platform. The emails’ subject lines were personalized to include recipient-specific details such as “Invoice for [recipient email]”. Notably, the attack chain utilized multiple tools available for purchase on underground forums for traffic filtering and social engineering.

The emails contained URLs leading to the Prometheus traffic direction system (TDS) hosted on numerous compromised sites. The TDS in turn, redirected users to the attacker-controlled website binadata[.]com that hosted the ClickFix social engineering framework. Like the previous campaign, targets were instructed to click a “I’m not a robot” prompt and run malicious code via a multi-step process. The malicious code was an mshta command that downloaded and executed JavaScript from the IP address 185.147.125[.]174. The JavaScript ran a PowerShell command that downloaded more PowerShell code, which finally downloaded and launched a Lumma Stealer executable. Notably, Xworm malware was also bundled into this executable.

Lumma Stealer malware analysis

The core Lumma Stealer malware is written in a combination of C++ and ASM. The malware author designed it as a MaaS offering. Threat actors can access the panel to build the malware binary and manage the C2 communications and stolen information. The core binary is obfuscated with advanced protection such as low-level virtual machine (LLVM core), Control Flow Flattening (CFF), Control Flow Obfuscation, customized stack decryption, huge stack variables, and dead codes, among others. These techniques are implemented on the critical functions to make static analysis difficult, as these can cause tools like Hex-Rays’ IDA fail to produce equivalent decompiled codes. In addition, most of the critical APIs are implemented via low-level syscalls and Heavens Gate Technology.

Lumma Stealer is designed to steal from browsers based on Chromium and Mozilla technology, including Microsoft Edge. In addition, it has the capability to install other malware or plugins, including Clipboard stealer plugin and coin miners, either by downloading to disk or directly in memory.

Process injection and process hollowing

Lumma loader may use process hollowing to inject its malicious payload into legitimate system processes like msbuild.exe, regasm.exe, regsvcs.exe, and explorer.exe. This technique enables execution under the guise of a trusted binary to bypass behavioral detection and endpoint monitoring tools.

Information-stealing capabilities

Lumma Stealer targets a comprehensive set of user data using a specialized collection routine for each type of data. These capabilities have evolved over time, and Microsoft Threat Intelligence has recently observed that the instructions for the target credentials are specified in the configuration file retrieved from the active C2 server. The configuration file is divided into several parts: the “ex” section that pertains to the target list of apps for cryptocurrency wallets and extensions, and “c” sections that pertain to the list of applications and configuration details for browsers, user file’s locations, and other applications.

• Browser credentials and cookies: Lumma Stealer extracts saved passwords, session cookies, and autofill data from Chromium (including Edge), Mozilla, and Gecko-based browsers.
• Cryptocurrency wallets and extensions: Lumma Stealer actively searches for wallet files, browser extensions, and local keys associated with wallets like MetaMask, Electrum, and Exodus.
• Various applications: Lumma Stealer targets data from various virtual private networks (VPNs) (.ovpn), email clients, FTP clients, and Telegram applications.  
• User documents: Lumma Stealer harvests files found on the user profiles and other common directories, especially those with .pdf, .docx, or .rtf extensions.
• System metadata: Lumma Stealer collects host telemetry such as CPU information, OS version, system locale, and installed applications for tailoring future exploits or profiling victims.

C2 communication

Lumma Stealer maintains a robust C2 infrastructure, using a combination of hardcoded tier 1 C2s that are regularly updated and reordered, and fallback C2s hosted as Steam profiles and Telegram channels that also point to the tier 1 C2s. The Telegram C2, if available, is always checked first, while the Steam C2 is checked only when all the hardcoded C2s are not active. To further hide the real C2 servers, all the C2 servers are hidden behind the Cloudflare proxy.

While Lumma Stealer affiliates share the tier 1 C2s, there is a capability to add a personal tier 1 C2 domain for an extra cost. The diagram below shows an overview of the Lumma Stealer infrastructure. All traffic is encrypted by HTTPS.

Different types of obfuscation are applied to each set of C2 servers. For example, the hardcoded list of C2s, and including the Telegram fallback C2 URL are protected with ChaCha20 crypto, while the Steam profile fallback C2 URL is encrypted using custom stack-based crypto algorithm that can change on each version of Lumma malware.

We have identified up to six versions of Lumma Stealer, and while each of these versions focuses on improving techniques to evade antivirus detections, there are also several changes in the C2 communication protocol and formats such as the C2 domains, URI path, POST data, and others. The core Lumma malware stores the build date as part of the embedded configuration to keep track of improvements, but in our investigation, we tracked major changes using the labels “version 1” through “version 6”.

Lumma Stealer keeps track of the active C2 for sending the succeeding commands. Each command is sent to a single C2 domain that is active at that point. In addition, each C2 command contains one or more C2 parameters specified as part of the POST data as form data. The parameters are:  

• act: Indicates the C2 command. Note: This C2 parameter no longer exists in Lumma version 6.
• ver: Indicates C2 protocol version. This value is always set to 4.0 and has never changed since the first version Lumma.
• lid (for version 5 and below)/uid (for version 6): This ID identifies the Lumma client/operator and its campaign.
• j (for version 5 and below )/cid (for version 6): This is an optional field that identifies additional Lumma features.
• hwid: Indicates the unique identifier for the victim machine.
• pid: Used in SEND_MESSAGE command to identify the source of the stolen data. A value of 1, indicates it came from the Lumma core process.

The following are some of the most common Lumma Stealer C2 commands and associated parameters:

• PING / LIFE: Initial command to check if the C2 is active. Note: This command does not exist in version 6.
  • act=life
• RECEIVE_MESSAGE: Command to download the stealer’s configuration. As noted above, this contains the specifications on the list of targets.
  • version 3 and below: act=recive_message&ver=4.0&lid=[<lid_value>]&j=[<j_value>]
  • version 4 and 5: act=receive_message&ver=4.0&lid=[<lid_value>]&j=[<j_value>]
  • version 6: uid=<uid_value>&cid=[<cid_value>]
• SEND_MESSAGE: Command to send back stolen data in chunks. The C2 parameters are specified as individual section in the whole POST data. The fields included are act=send_message, hwid, pid, lid/uid, and j/cid. The act field was removed in version 6.
• GET_MESSAGE: Command to download the second configuration. This configuration contains information about the plugins and additional malware to install on the target systems. We have observed that in most cases this command will respond with valid but empty records “[]”, meaning nothing to download. So far, we have observed Lumma Stealer installing an updated version of the Clipboard stealer plugin and coin miners.
  • versions 5 and below: act=get_message&ver=4.0&lid=[<lid_value>]&j=[<j_value>]&hwid=<hwid_value>
  • version 6: uid=<uid_value>&cid=[<cid_value>]&hwid=<hwid_value>

Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) engineered tools that identify and map the Lumma Stealer C2 infrastructure. As part of the disruption announced on May 21, Microsoft’s DCU has facilitated the takedown, suspension, and blocking of approximately 2,300 malicious domains that formed the backbone of the Lumma Stealer infrastructure.  More details of this operation are presented in the DCU disruption announcement.

Recommendations

Microsoft Threat Intelligence recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

Strengthen Microsoft Defender for Endpoint configuration

• Ensure that tamper protection is enabled in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
• Enable network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
• Turn on web protection.
• Run endpoint detection and response (EDR) in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-breach.    
• Configure investigation and remediation in full automated mode to let Microsoft Defender for Endpoint take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume. 
• Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on the following attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques used by threat actors.
  • Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
  • Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content
  • Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands
  • Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem
  • Block use of copied or impersonated system tools

Strengthen operating environment configuration

• Require multifactor authentication (MFA). While certain attacks such as adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing attempt to circumvent MFA, implementation of MFA remains an essential pillar in identity security and is highly effective at stopping a variety of threats.
• Leverage phishing-resistant authentication methods such as FIDO Tokens, or Microsoft Authenticator with passkey. Avoid telephony-based MFA methods to avoid risks associated with SIM-jacking.
• Implement Entra ID Conditional Access authentication strength to require phishing-resistant authentication for employees and external users for critical apps.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge with Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware.
• Enable Network Level Authentication for Remote Desktop Service connections.
• Enable Local Security Authority (LSA) protection to block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem.
• AppLocker can restrict specific software tools prohibited within the organization, such as reconnaissance, fingerprinting, and RMM tools, or grant access to only specific users.

Detection details

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects this threat as the following malware:

• Behavior:Win32/LummaStealer
• Trojan:JS/LummaStealer
• Trojan:MSIL/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win32/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win64/LummaStealer
• TrojanDropper:Win32/LummaStealer
• Trojan:PowerShell/Powdow
• Trojan:Win64/Shaolaod
• Behavior:Win64/Shaolaod
• Behavior:Win32/MaleficAms
• Behavior:Win32/ClickFix
• Behavior:Win32/SuspClickFix
• Trojan:Win32/ClickFix
• Trojan:PowerShell/ClickFixObfus
• Behavior:Win32/RegRunMRU
• Trojan:HTML/FakeCaptcha
• Trojan:Script/SuspDown

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts might also indicate threat activity related to this threat. Note, however, that these alerts can be also triggered by unrelated threat activity:

• Suspicious command in RunMRU registry
• Possible Lumma Stealer activity
• Information stealing malware activity
• Suspicious PowerShell command line
• Use of living-off-the-land binary to run malicious code
• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information
• Suspicious DPAPI Activity
• Suspicious mshta process launched
• Renamed AutoIt tool
• Suspicious phishing activity detected
• Suspicious implant process from a known emerging threat
• A process was injected with potentially malicious code
• Process hollowing detected
• Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution
• A process was launched on a hidden desktop

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 identifies and blocks malicious emails. These alerts, however, can also be triggered by unrelated threat activity:

• A potentially malicious URL click was detected
• Email messages containing malicious URL removed after delivery
• Email messages removed after delivery
• A user clicked through to a potentially malicious URL
• Suspicious email sending patterns detected
• Email reported by user as malware or phish

Defender for Office 365 also detects and blocks Prometheus TDS, EtherHiding patterns, ClickFix landing pages.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat actor profile
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article
• Vulnerability impact assessment

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Storm-1865 phishing campaigns over vendor platforms lead to payment data theft and fraudulent charges
• Lumma Stealer
• Malvertising campaign leads to info stealers hosted on GitHub
• ClickFix technique leverages clipboard to run malicious commands

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

ClickFix commands execution

Identify ClickFix commands execution.

DeviceRegistryEvents
| where ActionType =~ "RegistryValueSet"
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "explorer.exe"
| where RegistryKey has @"\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU"
| where RegistryValueData has "✅"
        or (RegistryValueData has_any ("powershell", "mshta", "curl", "msiexec", "^")
             and RegistryValueData matches regex "[\u0400-\u04FF\u0370-\u03FF\u0590-\u05FF\u0600-\u06FF\u0E00-\u0E7F\u2C80-\u2CFF\u13A0-\u13FF\u0530-\u058F\u10A0-\u10FF\u0900-\u097F]")
        or (RegistryValueData has "mshta" and RegistryValueName !~ "MRUList" and RegistryValueData !in~ ("mshta.exe\\1", "mshta\\1"))
        or (RegistryValueData has_any ("bitsadmin", "forfiles", "ProxyCommand=") and RegistryValueName !~ "MRUList")
        or ((RegistryValueData startswith "cmd" or RegistryValueData startswith "powershell")
            and (RegistryValueData has_any ("-W Hidden ", " -eC ", "curl", "E:jscript", "ssh", "Invoke-Expression", "UtcNow", "Floor", "DownloadString", "DownloadFile", "FromBase64String",  "System.IO.Compression", "System.IO.MemoryStream", "iex", "Invoke-WebRequest", "iwr", "Get-ADDomainController", "InstallProduct", "-w h", "-X POST", "Invoke-RestMethod", "-NoP -W", ".InVOKe", "-useb", "irm ", "^", "[char]", "[scriptblock]", "-UserAgent", "UseBasicParsing", ".Content")
              or RegistryValueData matches regex @"[-/–][Ee^]{1,2}[NnCcOoDdEeMmAa^]*\s[A-Za-z0-9+/=]{15,}"))

DPAPI decryption via AutoIT or .NET Framework processes

Identify DPAPI decryption activity originating from AutoIT scripts .NET Framework processes.

DeviceEvents
| where ActionType == "DpapiAccessed"
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe"
      or InitiatingProcessFolderPath has "\\windows\\microsoft.net\\framework\\"
      or InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "powershell.exe"
| where (AdditionalFields has_any("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and AdditionalFields has_any("SPCryptUnprotect"))
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend dataDesp = tostring(json.DataDescription.PropertyValue)
| extend opType = tostring(json.OperationType.PropertyValue)
| where dataDesp in~ ("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge", "Chromium", "Opera", "Opera GX", "IMAP Password", "Brave Browser", "AVG Secure Browser") 
        and opType =~ "SPCryptUnprotect"
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, ActionType, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields, dataDesp, opType

Sensitive browser file access via AutoIT or .NET Framework processes

Identify .NET Framework processes (such as RegAsm.exe, MSBuild.exe, etc.) accessing sensitive browser files.

let browserDirs = pack_array(@"\Google\Chrome\User Data\", @"\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\", @"\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\"); 
let browserSensitiveFiles = pack_array("Web Data", "Login Data", "key4.db", "formhistory.sqlite", "cookies.sqlite", "logins.json", "places.sqlite", "cert9.db");
DeviceEvents
| where AdditionalFields has_any ("FileOpenSource") // Filter for "File Open" events.
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe"
      or InitiatingProcessImageFilePath has "\\windows\\microsoft.net\\framework\\"
      or InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "powershell.exe"
| where (AdditionalFields has_any(browserDirs) or  AdditionalFields has_any(browserSensitiveFiles)) 
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend File_Name = tostring(json.FileName.PropertyValue)
| where (File_Name has_any (browserDirs) and File_Name has_any (browserSensitiveFiles))
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, File_Name

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel, and Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/threatintel.microsoft.com.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Lumma Stealer: Breaking down the delivery techniques and capabilities of a prolific infostealer appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Since October 2024, Microsoft Defender Experts (DEX) has observed and helped multiple customers address campaigns leveraging Node.js to deliver malware and other payloads that ultimately lead to information theft and data exfiltration. While traditional scripting languages like Python, PHP, and AutoIT remain widely used in threats, threat actors are now leveraging compiled JavaScript—or even running the scripts directly in the command line using Node.js—to facilitate malicious activity. This shift in threat actor techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) might indicate that while Node.js-related malware aren’t as prevalent, they’re quickly becoming a part of the continuously evolving threat landscape.

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that allows JavaScript code to run outside of a web browser. It’s widely used and trusted by developers because it lets them build frontend and backend applications. However, threat actors are also leveraging these Node.js characteristics to try to blend malware with legitimate applications, bypass conventional security controls, and persist in target environments.  

Among the most recent attacks we’ve observed leveraging Node.js include a malvertising campaign related to cryptocurrency trading that attempts to lure users into downloading a malicious installer disguised as legitimate software. The said campaign is still active as of April 2025. This blog provides details of its attack chain, along with an example of the emerging inline script execution technique. This blog also includes recommendations to help users and defenders reduce the impact of these attacks in their environments.

Malicious ads deliver compiled Node.js executables

Malvertising has been one of the most prevalent techniques in Node.js attacks we’ve observed in customer environments. Attackers use malvertising campaigns to lure targets to fraudulent websites, where the targets then unknowingly download a malicious installer disguised as legitimate software. These fake websites often take advantage of popular themes such as financial services, software updates, and trending applications.

In this campaign, the downloaded installer contains a malicious DLL that gathers system information and sets up a scheduled task for persistence. This sets the stage for its other techniques and activities, such as defense evasion, data collection, and payload delivery and execution.

Initial access and persistence

This campaign uses malicious ads with a cryptocurrency trading theme to lure the target user into visiting a website and downloading a malicious installer disguised as a legitimate file from cryptocurrency-trading platforms like Binance or TradingView. This installer is a Wix-built package containing a malicious CustomActions.dll. When launched, the installer loads the DLL, which then gathers basic system information through a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) query and creates a scheduled task to ensure persistence of a PowerShell command. Simultaneously, the DLL launches a decoy by opening an msedge_proxy window that displays a legitimate cryptocurrency trading website.

Defense evasion

The created scheduled task runs PowerShell commands designed to exclude both the PowerShell process and the current directory from being scanned by Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. This action prevents subsequent PowerShell executions from being flagged, allowing the attack to continue undisturbed.

Data collection and exfiltration

With the exclusions set, an obfuscated PowerShell command is then launched through scheduled tasks to continuously fetch and run scripts from remote URLs. These scripts gather detailed system information, including:

• Windows information: Registered owner, system root, installed software, email addresses
• BIOS information: Manufacturer, name, release date, version
• System information: Name, domain, manufacturer, model, domain membership, memory, logical processors, graphics processing units (GPUs), processors, network adapters
• Operating system information: Name, version, locale, user access control (UAC) settings, country, language, time zone, install date

All this information is structured into a nested hash table, converted into JSON format, and then sent using HTTP POST to the attacker’s command-and-control (C2) server.

Payload delivery

After the data collection activity, another PowerShell script is launched to perform the following actions:

• Download an archive file from the C2 and extract its contents, which typically include:
  • node.exe (Node.js runtime)
  • A JSC file (JavaScript compiled file)
  • Several supporting library files/modules
• Turn off proxy settings in the Windows registry
• Launch the JSC that starts the attack’s next stage

Payload execution

The Node.js executable launches the downloaded JSC file, which then performs the following routines:

• Load multiple library modules
• Establish network connections
• Add certificates to the device
• Read and possibly exfiltrate sensitive browser information

These routines might indicate follow-on malicious activities such as credential theft, evasion, or secondary payload execution, which are commonly observed in other malware campaigns leveraging Node.js.

Beyond executables: Inline script execution in Node.js

Another notable technique we’ve observed emerging from campaigns leveraging Node.js involves inline JavaScript execution. In this technique, malicious scripts are run directly through Node.js to facilitate the deployment of malware.

One observed instance of this method was through a ClickFix social engineering attack, which attempts to deceive users into executing a malicious PowerShell command. This command initiates the download and installation of multiple components, including the Node.js binary (node.exe) and additional required modules. Once all the files are in place, the PowerShell script uses the Node.js environment to execute a JavaScript code directly in the command, rather than running it from a file.

The JavaScript further conducts network discovery by executing commands to map the domain structure and identify high-value assets. It also disguises the command-and-control traffic as legitimate Cloudflare activity and gains persistence by modifying registry run keys.

Recommendations

Organizations can follow these recommendations to mitigate threats associated with Node.js misuse:                   

• Educate users. Warn them about the risks of downloading software from unverified sources. 
• Monitor Node.js execution. Flag unauthorized node.exe processes. 
• Enforce PowerShell logging. Turn on script block logging to track obfuscation. 
• Turn on endpoint protection. Ensure endpoint detection and response (EDR) or extended detection and response (XDR) solutions are actively monitoring script execution. 
• Restrict outbound C2 communications. Implement firewall rules to block suspicious domains. 

Microsoft also recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

• Turn on cloud-delivered protection in Microsoft Defender Antivirus or the equivalent for your antivirus product to cover rapidly evolving attacker tools and techniques. Cloud-based machine learning protections block a majority of new and unknown threats.
• Run EDR in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-breach.
• Allow investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Understand and use PowerShell’s execution policies, which control how scripts are loaded and run. Set an appropriate execution policy based on your needs. Remember that execution policy alone is not foolproof; it can be bypassed.
• Turn on and monitor PowerShell logging.
  • Turn on script block logging, module logging, and transcription. These logs provide a trail of activity and help identify malicious behavior.
  • Dive deeper into PowerShell security features.
• Turn on tamper protection features to prevent attackers from stopping security services. Combine tamper protection with the DisableLocalAdminMerge setting to prevent attackers from using local administrator privileges to set antivirus exclusions.

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques: 

• Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion
• Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
• Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.  

• Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution 
• Suspicious Task Scheduler activity 
• Suspicious behavior by powershell.exe was observed 
• Node binary loading suspicious combination of libraries 
• Activity that might lead to information stealer 
• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information 
• Suspicious DPAPI Activity 

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• ClickFix and spoofed IT apps deliver RATs via Node.js over Cloudflare Quick Tunnels

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Suspicious JSC file 

DeviceProcessEvents  
| where isnotempty(DeviceId)  
| where ProcessVersionInfoOriginalFileName == 'node.exe'   
| where (ProcessCommandLine has_all (".jsc", ".js") and ProcessCommandLine matches regex @"\\\w*.jsc") 

Suspicious inline JavaScript execution 

Identify suspicious inline JavaScript 

DeviceProcessEvents  
| where isnotempty(DeviceId)  
| where ProcessVersionInfoOriginalFileName == 'node.exe'   
| where ProcessCommandLine has_all ('http', 'execSync',  'spawn', 'fs', 'path', 'zlib') 

Node.js-based infostealer activity 

Detect malicious access to sensitive credentials using Windows DPAPI 

DeviceEvents
| where isnotempty(DeviceId)
| where ActionType == "DpapiAccessed"
| where InitiatingProcessParentFileName endswith "powershell.exe"
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "node.exe"
| where InitiatingProcessCommandLine  has_all ("-r", ".js") and InitiatingProcessCommandLine endswith ".jsc"
| where AdditionalFields has "SPCryptUnprotect"

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Below are the queries using Sentinel Advanced Security Information Model (ASIM) functions to hunt threats across both Microsoft first-party and third-party data sources. ASIM also supports deploying parsers to specific workspaces from GitHub, using an ARM template or manually.

• Scheduled Task Creation

Detect network indicators of compromise communication to C2 servers:

let selectedTimestamp = datetime(2025-04-15T00:00:00.0000000Z);
let ip = dynamic(['216.245.184.181', '212.237.217.182', '168.119.96.41']);
let url = dynamic(['sublime-forecasts-pale-scored.trycloudflare.com', 'washing-cartridges-watts-flags.trycloudflare.com', 'investigators-boxing-trademark-threatened.trycloudflare.com', 'fotos-phillips-princess-baker.trycloudflare.com', 'casting-advisors-older-invitations.trycloudflare.com', 'complement-parliamentary-chairs-hc.trycloudflare.com']);
search in (AlertEvidence,BehaviorEntities,CommonSecurityLog,DeviceInfo,DeviceNetworkEvents,DeviceNetworkInfo,DnsEvents,SecurityEvent,VMConnection,WindowsFirewall)
TimeGenerated between ((selectedTimestamp - 1m) .. (selectedTimestamp + 90d)) // from April 15th runs the search for last 90 days, change the above selectedTimestamp or 90d accordingly.
and 
(RemoteIP in (ip) or DestinationIP in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address1 in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address2 in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address3 in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address4 in (ip) or 
MaliciousIP in (ip) or SourceIP in (ip) or PublicIP in (ip) or LocalIPType in (ip) or RemoteIPType in (ip) or IPAddresses in (ip) or IPv4Dhcp in (ip) or IPv6Dhcp in (ip) or IpAddress in (ip) or 
NASIPv4Address in (ip) or NASIPv6Address in (ip) or RemoteIpAddress in (ip) or RemoteUrl in (url))

MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques observed 
 

Learn more

To know how Microsoft can help your team stop similar threats and prevent future compromise with human-led managed services, check out Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR.

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Threat actors misuse Node.js to deliver malware and other malicious payloads appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.