{"id":212552,"date":"2026-02-10T06:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T11:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T05:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:10:25","slug":"windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/10\/windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows shortcut weaponized in Phorpiex-linked ransomware campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.csoonline.com\/article\/4130019\/windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign.html\">Windows shortcut weaponized in Phorpiex-linked ransomware campaign<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.csoonline.com\/article\/4130019\/windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign.html\">https:\/\/www.csoonline.com\/article\/4130019\/windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-10 06:56:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.csoonline.com\">www.csoonline.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Unlike many modern ransomware operations that rely on external command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, the Global Group payload executes locally once delivered, complicating detection and response efforts by traditional network-centric security controls, the researchers noted.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Weaponized LNK files<\/h2>\n<p>The infection chain begins with a user opening a shortcut file with a double extension, such as \u201cDocument.doc.lnk\u201d. Because Windows hides file extensions by default, the file appears to the user as a legitimate document. The shortcut icon is also customized to resemble a Microsoft Word file to further reduce suspicion.<\/p>\n<p>When executed, the .lnk file launches built-in Windows utilities, including cms.exe and PowerShell, to retrieve and execute the next-stage payload. Because no exploit is involved, this approach allows attackers to bypass security controls that focus on malicious documents or executable attachments.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.csoonline.com\/article\/4130019\/windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Windows shortcut weaponized in Phorpiex-linked ransomware campaign https:\/\/www.csoonline.com\/article\/4130019\/windows-shortcut-weaponized-in-phorpiex-linked-ransomware-campaign.html Publish Date: 2026-02-10 06:56:00 Source Domain: www.csoonline.com&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.csoonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4130019-0-83349600-1770724601-shutterstock_2668466907.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-212552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-exploit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212554,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212552\/revisions\/212554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}