PULSE NAME
Obfuscation Without Effort: Breaking a GIFTEDCROOK Stealer
WHITE UAC-0226 AlienVault 2026-04-13 Modified: 2026-04-13
8
IOCs
LOW VOLUME
A fresh GIFTEDCROOK stealer variant was identified as part of a UAC-0226 campaign targeting Ukraine. Initial access leverages CVE-2025-6218 and CVE-2025-8088 through a weaponized RAR archive containing a decoy PDF themed around military registry information. The attack chain uses an LNK file to execute obfuscated PowerShell code that decodes and deploys the payload. The stealer employs RC4 encryption for data protection, chunks exfiltration into 133KB segments, and uses runtime-reconstructed C2 communication. Despite heavy obfuscation including useless function calls, random variables, and noise, the malware follows a straightforward execution flow: generating seed cookies, dispatching functions, encrypting data with RC4 using the key 'JtyIQxPND8G', and exfiltrating stolen information via HTTP to the command-and-control server. The architecture demonstrates effective simplicity rather than sophisticated complexity.
Indicators of Compromise (8)
All CVE FileHash-MD5 FileHash-SHA1 FileHash-SHA256 IPv4 URL
TYPEINDICATORDESCRIPTIONCREATED
CVE CVE-2025-6218 2026-04-13
CVE CVE-2025-8088 2026-04-13
FileHash-MD5 c0b73ff43312d442260328a8cefdf3b6 2026-04-13
FileHash-SHA1 4528d5cf07bf0e1ac769b390236cab1bf34b938c 2026-04-13
FileHash-SHA256 2a8ea9f1ad8936fb302243faa64b91c5767df411923715cbdb1a869e3bfd7e6d 2026-04-13
FileHash-SHA256 7200a9f1e1ea51b66ab9c9274e9d8f805633179634e8ff4dcb8ef82bc02518df 2026-04-13
IPv4 136.0.141.138 2026-04-13
URL https://136.0.141.138:8406/rcv/ 2026-04-13