Description

A new Lampion malware campaign is actively targeting users in Portugal through highly localized phishing emails impersonating financial and administrative communications. Originally identified in 2019, the Brazilian-origin banking malware continues to evolve by employing sophisticated multi-stage infection techniques, extensive code obfuscation, and oversized payloads to bypass traditional security controls. The latest campaign demonstrates how attackers combine trusted regional branding with advanced anti-analysis methods to maximize infection success. The attack begins with phishing emails written in Portuguese, carrying ZIP archive attachments containing heavily padded HTML files. When victims open the attachment, they are presented with a fake SAPO file transfer interface that appears legitimate. Embedded JavaScript silently downloads additional payloads from attacker-controlled infrastructure and executes them within the browser session. The second stage deploys highly obfuscated Visual Basic Script (VBS) files, many exceeding 7 MB despite containing minimal executable logic. These scripts establish persistence through scheduled tasks, generate additional downloaders, and collect system information such as BIOS identifiers, GPU details, hostnames, and installed antivirus products. The malware communicates this telemetry to its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure before downloading its final DLL-based Remote Access Trojan (RAT) in 10 MB chunks using HTTP range requests. The fragments are reconstructed locally using ADODB.Stream and executed via rundll32, while excessive junk padding inflates the payload to nearly 750 MB, significantly complicating sandbox analysis and automated detection.