Ukraine court-summons lure via CVE-2025-8088 archive, Startup LNK, cv4 PowerShell loader, Zhg in-memory payload and HTTPS C2
UAC-0226
Ukraine-focused chain reconstructed from submitted artifacts and static analysis. The archive container itself was not submitted, so archive-level hash and original email metadata remain unavailable. The member names and dropped artifacts are consistent with CVE-2025-8088/WinRAR path traversal and ADS-style archive extraction semantics: a visible Ukrainian court-summons PDF is shown while hidden/traversal members place a Startup LNK and ProgramData payload components. The LNK starts hidden PowerShell through cmd.exe and executes C:\ProgramData\cv4. cv4 reads C:\ProgramData\Zhg, decodes it by subtracting 0x2b from each byte, maps the decoded flat x64 image in memory, starts it at offset 0x197a0, and uses an HTTPS status endpoint. The decoded Zhg stage contains libcurl/SChannel behavior and an RC4-like encrypted Stage-2 C2 URL.
chain match