Malicious Contagious Interview RAT via Masqueraded Service Binary in User Path

PremiumReviewedSigma · High · v1
Product
windows
Category
process_creation
Author
HuntRule
Published
2026-09-19
Updated
2026-09-19

ATT&CK techniques

Defense Evasion
  1. Recon

  2. Resource Dev

  3. Initial Access

  4. Execution

  5. Persistence

  6. Priv Esc

  7. Cred Access

  8. Discovery

  9. Lateral Movement

  10. Collection

  11. C2

  12. Exfiltration

  13. Impact

What it detects

This rule detects execution of service-sounding binaries dropped by the Contagious Interview toolkit from a user profile directory rather than a system location. The North Korean operators name their implants to imitate host, print and DHCP services to blend in. Running such a binary out of a user path is a strong masquerading indicator of the second-stage RAT.

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Malicious Contagious Interview RAT via Masqueraded Service Binary in User Path
Pivot detection · T1036.005 · 9 related

Detection content is published as a reviewed draft. Tune thresholds and exclusions against your own telemetry before enabling this rule for alerting.