VERY IMPORTANT

A financially motivated campaign identified in April 2026 delivers Vidar stealer and XMRig cryptocurrency miner to victims worldwide through malvertising. Attackers distribute password-protected archives impersonating cracked software, using Go-compiled loaders built with the Factory-v3 framework. The malware employs sophisticated evasion techniques including rogue Authenticode certificates mimicking JustWatch and BleacherReport, file-size inflation to hundreds of MB with null bytes, and AMSI bypass. Once executed, Vidar stealer exfiltrates browser credentials, cookies and cryptocurrency wallets to C2 infrastructure, while XMRig mines Monero cryptocurrency. The operation establishes persistence through registry modifications, scheduled tasks and startup folder scripts. The threat actor, operating under the moniker X3D MINER, primarily targets victims in the U.S. and European Union through a dual-monetization scheme combining credential theft and cryptojacking.