Archive
037
EXH-0372026Fictional reconstruction

YellowKey

February 3, 2026. Help-desk chat lights up: executives forward a polished ‘IT verification’ portal that asks for BitLocker recovery keys. You walk chat transcripts, Intune exports, and a forged page hash.

Type
Defensive / IR
Difficulty
Intermediate
Era
2020s
Time
10 min

Briefing

Attackers branded a fake portal ‘Device Trust Recovery’ and pushed links through SMS and compromised vendor mail. The goal is volume: collect BitLocker recovery keys and wipe resale friction on stolen laptops. You work evidence staged as flat text files, no live tenant APIs.

Your role

Enterprise DFIR analyst on the identity and endpoint team.

Objective

Reconstruct the phish from SMS lure to fake recovery form to recovery-key use, then verify wipe and identity containment.

Terminal environment

user
responder
host
dfir-laptop-02
cwd
/home/dfir/yellowkey
steps
8
Enter the terminalAbout 10 minutesSafe simulation

Safety note. This is a safe reconstruction. All systems, files, hosts, credentials, and outputs are simulated. Do not use these techniques on systems you do not own or have explicit permission to test.