{"id":231241,"date":"2026-02-13T01:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T07:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/microsoft-new-windows-lnk-spoofing-issues-arent-vulnerabilities"},"modified":"2026-02-13T01:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T07:18:14","slug":"microsoft-new-windows-lnk-spoofing-issues-arent-vulnerabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/microsoft-new-windows-lnk-spoofing-issues-arent-vulnerabilities","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft: New Windows LNK spoofing issues aren\u2019t vulnerabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" mozallowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1164177622\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Today, at Wild West Hackin\u2019 Fest, security researcher Wietze Beukema disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in Windows LK shortcut files that allow attackers to deploy malicious payloads.<\/p>\n<p>Beukema <a href=\"https:\/\/wietzebeukema.nl\/blog\/trust-me-im-a-shortcut\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">documented four previously unknown techniques<\/a> for manipulating Windows LNK shortcut files to hide malicious targets from users inspecting file properties.<\/p>\n<p>LNK shortcuts were introduced with Windows 95 and use a complex binary format that allows attackers to create deceptive files that appear legitimate in Windows Explorer\u2019s properties dialog but execute entirely different programs when opened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, at Wild West Hackin\u2019 Fest, security researcher Wietze Beukema disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in Windows LK shortcut files that allow attackers to deploy malicious payloads. Beukema documented four previously unknown techniques for manipulating Windows LNK shortcut files to hide malicious targets from users inspecting file properties. LNK shortcuts were introduced with Windows 95 and use [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1492],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}