We have recently started a new blog series called #VTPRACTITIONERS. This series aims to share with the community what other practitioners are able to research using VirusTotal from a technical point of view.

Our first blog saw our colleagues at SEQRITE tracking UNG0002, Silent Lynx, and DragonClone. In this new post, Acronis Threat Research Unit (TRU) shares practical insights from multiple investigations, including the ClickFix variant known as FileFix, the long-running South Asian threat actor SideWinder, and the SVG-based campaign targeting Colombia and named Shadow Vector.

For the threat analyst, web-based threats present a unique set of challenges. Unlike file-based malware, the initial stages of a web-based attack often exist only as ephemeral artifacts within a browser. The core of the investigation relies on dissecting the components of a website, from its HTML and JavaScript to the payloads it delivers. This is where VT capabilities for archiving and analyzing web content become critical.

VT allows analysts to move beyond simple URL reputation checks and delve into the content of web pages themselves. For attacks like the *Fix family, which trick users into executing malicious commands, the entire attack chain is often laid bare within the page’s source code. The analyst’s starting point becomes the malicious commands themselves, such as navigator.clipboard.writeText or document.execCommand(“copy”), which are used to surreptitiously copy payloads to the victim’s clipboard.

The Acronis team’s investigation into the FileFix variant demonstrates a practical application of this methodology. Their research began not with a specific sample, but with a hypothesis that could be translated into a set of hunting rules. Using VT’s Livehunt feature, they were able to create YARA rules that searched for new web pages containing the clipboard commands alongside common payload execution tools like powershell, mshta, or cmd. This proactive hunting approach allowed them to cast a wide net and identify potentially

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