PULSE NAME
Tracking the VS Code Tasks Infection Vector
WHITE Lazarus Group AlienVault 2026-01-23 Modified: 2026-01-23
40
IOCs
MEDIUM VOLUME
The Contagious Interview campaign, attributed to North Korea, continues to target software developers through fake recruitment schemes. A new technique in their arsenal leverages Microsoft Visual Studio Code task files to execute malicious code when a project is opened. The report documents observations of this vector, presents GitHub-based discovery methods, highlights findings including a new malicious NPM package, and outlines detection opportunities. The campaign exploits VS Code's Task feature, using the runOptions property to automatically execute malicious shell commands when a workspace is opened. Various obfuscation techniques are employed, including hiding commands with whitespace and masquerading payloads as image or font files.
MITRE ATT&CK & Malware Families
ATT&CK TECHNIQUES
MALWARE FAMILIES
BeaverTail InvisibleFerret
Indicators of Compromise (4 / 40 total)
All URL hostname email
TYPEINDICATORDESCRIPTIONCREATED
URL https://www.jsonkeeper.com/b/QJZCG 2026-01-23
URL https://www.regioncheck.xyz/settings/linux?flag=8' 2026-01-23
URL https://www.regioncheck.xyz/settings/mac?flag=8' 2026-01-23
URL https://www.regioncheck.xyz/settings/windows?flag=8 2026-01-23