Loading story…
A new malware campaign has targeted users of the indie game platform Itch.io and Patreon by distributing the Lumma Stealer malware through fake game update links. Attackers created new accounts to spam comment sections of legitimate games on Itch.io, posting templated messages that claimed to offer game updates. These messages included links to archives such as “Updated Version.zip,” which, when downloaded, contained a malicious executable designed to deploy Lumma Stealer. The campaign also leveraged a reflective Node.js loader to evade detection and increase the likelihood of successful infection.
Security researchers observed that the attackers used a shotgun approach, spamming multiple games to maximize reach and exploit users unfamiliar with the platform. The malicious files were often hidden among benign files in the downloaded archive, making it harder for users to detect the threat. This campaign highlights the growing trend of threat actors targeting indie gaming communities and platforms beyond mainstream services like Steam, using social engineering and technical obfuscation to distribute credential-stealing malware.
Mallory correlates global threat intelligence with your attack surface — know if you’re exposed before adversaries strike.
3 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
Subsequent reporting described the same campaign as targeting Itch.io users through fake updates and a reflective Node.js loader to deploy Lumma Stealer. This reinforced the public understanding of the social-engineering and malware-delivery methods used in the operation.
Analysis revealed that the downloaded archive contained a nexe-packed Windows executable posing as a game file, which unpacked an obfuscated JavaScript loader with anti-analysis and anti-VM checks. If those checks passed, the loader dropped a Base64-encoded native module to %temp% and used it to reflectively load and execute a Lumma Stealer payload.
An ongoing malware campaign abused Itch.io game comment sections with fake "game update" messages that directed users to Patreon-hosted archives such as "Updated Version.zip." The operator reportedly continued creating new Itch.io accounts after bans to sustain the distribution effort.
Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.
2 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
Map indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
Trend Micro reported that the **Lumma Stealer** malware was being delivered through Discord’s content delivery network, using trusted infrastructure to host and spread credential-theft payloads. The campaign abused Discord CDN links to make malicious downloads appear legitimate, increasing the likelihood that users would execute the malware and allowing attackers to bypass some reputation-based defenses. Once installed, Lumma Stealer was positioned to harvest sensitive data from infected systems, including credentials and other information valuable for follow-on fraud or intrusion activity. The use of a widely trusted platform for malware hosting highlights how threat actors continue to blend malicious payload delivery into legitimate cloud and social platforms, complicating detection and response for enterprise defenders.
Jul 12, 2026
Threat actors distributed **LummaStealer** through two social-engineering chains that targeted users seeking pirated software or attempting to pass fake verification prompts. One campaign, active since at least December 2024, used GitHub repositories, cracked-software forums, URL shorteners, and posts on platforms including Facebook, Devpost, TikTok, and Chromium issues to push victims toward malicious JavaScript. That script suppressed referrer leakage, captured page-title context, and redirected users through intermediary domains on `.cfd`, `.click`, `.info`, and `.xyz` before serving password-protected archives from **MEGA** that extracted a LummaStealer executable. A separate delivery chain used counterfeit **CAPTCHA** pages to trick users into opening the Windows Run dialog and pasting a PowerShell command that fetched follow-on instructions from a shortened URL, downloaded a ZIP archive from `vultrcdn[.]com`, and launched a disguised `Setup.exe`. The infection sequence relied on legitimate-looking or signed binaries such as a revoked `Mergecap.exe`, a renamed `BtDaemon.exe` as `StrCmp.exe`, `more.com`, and `searchindexer.exe`, indicating DLL sideloading and process injection for evasion. Investigators observed outbound traffic to suspicious domains including `accentypastedw[.]store` and `onefreex.com`, while analysis of the final payload showed infostealer behavior including scheduled task creation, cryptographic API use, timestamp tampering, and file-permission changes.
Jun 29, 2026
Researchers documented multiple **Lumma Stealer** infection chains that begin with fake CAPTCHA or verification pages and trick Windows users into launching malicious PowerShell from the Run dialog. In one case, victims reached the lure through malicious pop-up ads on a pirated-content site; in another, a page at `you-checked.com` copied a hidden command to the clipboard that fetched follow-on payloads from domains including `ferrydero.com` and `fill-tomap.com`. The malware family, also known as **LummaC2**, is a malware-as-a-service infostealer designed to steal browser data, credentials, cryptocurrency wallets, session tokens, and other sensitive information. The observed chains used `mshta.exe`, obfuscated HTA and JavaScript, layered PowerShell stages, and multiple packed .NET components to retrieve and execute the final payload while evading analysis. Analysts reported AES and XOR decryption, SmartAssembly and .NET Reactor packing, AMSI bypass attempts, anti-sandbox and anti-debugging checks, Windows Defender evasion, and cleanup steps such as deleting downloaded archives after execution. One intrusion created files under `C:\ProgramData`, contacted `iplogger.co`, and launched an infostealer executable named `jegule.exe`, while another sample ultimately communicated through `winhttp.dll` and `ws2_32.dll`; investigators also recovered additional URLs from a Steam Community profile using ROT15 decoding.
Jul 7, 2026