Tracking the VS Code Tasks Infection Vector
The Contagious Interview campaign, attributed to North Korea, continues to target software developers through fake recruitment schemes. A new technique in their arsenal leverages Microsoft Visual Studio Code task files to execute malicious code when a project is opened. The report documents observations of this vector, presents GitHub-based discovery methods, highlights findings including a new malicious NPM package, and outlines detection opportunities. The campaign exploits VS Code's Task feature, using the runOptions property to automatically execute malicious shell commands when a workspace is opened. Various obfuscation techniques are employed, including hiding commands with whitespace and masquerading payloads as image or font files.
Pulse ID: 697349c8d32812c0e5094e4d
Pulse Link: https://otx.alienvault.com/pulse/697349c8d32812c0e5094e4d
Pulse Author: AlienVault
Created: 2026-01-23 10:13:28
Be advised, this data is unverified and should be considered preliminary. Always do further verification.
#CyberSecurity #GitHub #InfoSec #Korea #Microsoft #NPM #NorthKorea #OTX #OpenThreatExchange #bot #developers #AlienVault