North Korea–linked "Jade Sleet" used job interview-style coding projects to trick developers into running malicious infrastructure code. The lure involved GitHub repositories that contained a weaponized Terraform file, leading to downloads from attacker-controlled domains and installation of macOS backdoors (FLATROOF and ROOFDECK). An Indian IT services provider was also found compromised via a DevOps engineer’s Apple Silicon MacBook.
This campaign relied on job interview lures aimed at developers working in DevOps, cryptocurrency, or financial technology roles. Victims were invited to complete a take-home coding project hosted on GitHub, styled to look like an infrastructure engineering exercise tied to the company the attacker claimed to represent. The repository names, such as terraform-candidate-repo and Northwind-IAC, were designed to look like ordinary interview material.
The trap was built into a weaponized Terraform dependency lock file, .terraform.lock.hcl, that pointed to attacker-controlled domains such as registry.hashicorp-aws[.]com. When the developer ran the standard command terraform init to set up the environment, the platform silently pulled attacker-controlled modules instead of legitimate ones. That single command execution led to the deployment of macOS backdoors known as FLATROOF, which communicated over Telegram, and ROOFDECK, which used a Nostr-based command and control channel.
The lure worked because it fit naturally into a real hiring workflow. Candidates expect to be asked to clone a repo and run setup commands as part of a technical interview, so the request to run terraform init did not stand out as unusual. The repos were also tailored to look company-specific, adding a layer of legitimacy that made victims less likely to question the source.
A separate case investigated by SentinelOne showed the same pattern playing out inside an organization: an India-based IT services provider was compromised after a DevOps engineer opened a workspace on an Apple Silicon MacBook. The implants stayed dormant for days before beaconing activity began, showing how these compromises can sit quietly before becoming active.
Mirage safely runs attacks like this one against your own team, so you find out what happens before a real adversary does.
Attackers posed as recruiters or interviewers and shared a GitHub repository styled as an infrastructure engineering take-home project. The repo contained a weaponized Terraform dependency lock file that pointed to attacker-controlled domains, so running terraform init triggered a malicious download.
Running the compromised Terraform setup led to installation of macOS backdoors named FLATROOF, which used Telegram for command and control, and ROOFDECK, which used a Nostr-based command and control channel.
The campaign targeted developers, particularly those in DevOps, cryptocurrency, and financial technology roles, using job interview lures tailored to look like company-specific coding projects.
It disguised malicious code as a normal part of a technical hiring process, so victims ran setup commands like terraform init without treating the repo as untrusted, and developer endpoints often carry access to cloud and pipeline systems.
You get a DevOps interview email: "Clone this GitHub repo and run terraform init to validate your environment." Sounds normal, right? But this is a real campaign. The GitHub repo looks legit, yet its .terraform.lock.hcl silently points to registry.hashicorp-aws[.]com. The moment you run terraform init, your Mac can pull FLATROOF or ROOFDECK backdoors. SentinelOne even found an Indian IT provider hit this way: a DevOps engineer’s Apple Silicon MacBook opened a candidate repo workspace, implants launched, then sat quiet for days before beaconing out. Here’s the move: before you ever run terraform init or open an "interview" workspace on your main laptop, pause and verify the project and repo owner through your company’s official recruiting channel.
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