Prefetch files
To try to answer the previous question, we can start analyzing the prefetch files. From DART, open the WinPrefetchView tool. This tool will automatically parse the prefetch files of the live system and view their results in human readable format.
After spending some time in viewing the files and searching for the executable named epqe
, we can find that eqpe.exe
ran just two seconds after a file named latest_report.pdf.exe
ran in the system, and at the same second the Explorer.exe
started:
As we can see, the first filename is very suspicious. It is located under C:\Users\<<UserName>>\Downloads\latest_report.pdf.exe
. If we tried to search this location for this file, we won't find it. In the list of files used by this latest_report.pdf.exe
file, according to WinPrefetchView
, we will find the epqe.exe
file used or created by this file:
However, what made the victim download this malicious executable?