analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts is a skill for Claude Code from mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills. It costs 92 tokens per session (3,203 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

A guide for examining Windows shortcut files and Jump Lists, which record files opened and applications used.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it in Windows investigations to reconstruct file access, program execution, user activity, and timelines from LNK and Jump List records.
Why use it?
These records can show that a user accessed a file or ran a program, even after the original file has been deleted.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the cybersecurity-skills plugin — 56 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it in Windows investigations to reconstruct file access, program execution, user activity, and timelines from LNK and Jump List records.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts
About the project

Anthropic Cybersecurity Skills is a library of structured cybersecurity procedures for AI agents, covering security domains and mappings to established security frameworks. It is for authorized security analysis, penetration testing, incident response, research, defense, and education across compatible AI platforms. The catalogue entries package parts of this library as agent skills, instructions, or a plugin.

mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills · 32,631 stars · on GitHub · mahipal.engineer

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills --skill analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install cybersecurity-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 56 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/mukul975/anthropic-cybersecurity-skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 92 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,203 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • Socket pass 6 Apr 2026
  • Snyk pass 6 Apr 2026
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 5 findings, up to medium

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • medium Rogue Agent · line 111
    Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.
    Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
  • medium Rogue Agent · line 114
    Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.
    Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
  • medium Rogue Agent · line 117
    Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.
    Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
  • medium Rogue Agent · line 262
    Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.
    Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
  • medium Rogue Agent · line 292
    Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.
    Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00092 $0.03203
Opus 5 $0.00046 $0.01602
Sonnet 5 $0.00018 $0.00641
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00320

Measured 13d ago against content hash e52cda9d1646, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 13d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 2 executable files (scripts/agent.py, scripts/process.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

Copies of this mod

7 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

skills/analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts/SKILL.md · 294 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 294 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Analyzing LNK File and Jump List Artifacts

Overview

Windows LNK (shortcut) files and Jump Lists are critical forensic artifacts that provide evidence of file access, program execution, and user behavior. LNK files are created automatically when a user opens a file through Windows Explorer or the Open/Save dialog, storing metadata about the target file including its original path, timestamps, volume serial number, NetBIOS name, and MAC address of the host system. Jump Lists, introduced in Windows 7, extend this by maintaining per-application lists of recently and frequently accessed files. These artifacts persist even after the target files are deleted, making them invaluable for establishing that a user accessed specific files at specific times.

When to Use

  • When investigating security incidents that require analyzing lnk file and jump list artifacts
  • When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
  • When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
  • When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques

Prerequisites

  • LECmd (Eric Zimmerman) for LNK file parsing
  • JLECmd (Eric Zimmerman) for Jump List parsing
  • Python 3.8+ with pylnk3 or LnkParse3 libraries
  • Forensic image or triage collection from Windows system
  • Timeline Explorer for CSV analysis

LNK File Locations

Location Description
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\ Recent files accessed
%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\ User-created shortcuts
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\ Start Menu shortcuts
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office\Recent\ Office recent documents

LNK File Structure

Shell Link Header (76 bytes)

Offset Size Field
0x00 4 HeaderSize (always 0x0000004C)
0x04 16 LinkCLSID (always 00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046)
0x14 4 LinkFlags
0x18 4 FileAttributes
0x1C 8 CreationTime (FILETIME)
0x24 8 AccessTime (FILETIME)
0x2C 8 WriteTime (FILETIME)
0x34 4 FileSize of target
0x38 4 IconIndex
0x3C 4 ShowCommand
0x40 2 HotKey

Read the full file on GitHub · 294 lines

Files

What ships with it

7 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 13d ago First seen · 294 lines · 92 tokens per session scan A e52cda9d1646

Subscribe to this mod's changes

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts is a skill published in the GitHub repository mukul975/Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills (32,631 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 92 tokens to every session and 3,203 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

Analyze Windows LNK shortcut files and Jump List artifacts to establish evidence of file access, program execution, and user activity using LECmd, JLECmd, and manual binary parsing of the Shell Link Binary format.

xalgorix/xalgorix · 56 tokens

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

A guide to examining Windows shortcut files and Jump Lists, which record recently opened files and some application activity. It uses forensic tools and manual file-format analysis to collect evidence from Windows systems.

killvxk/cybersecurity-skills-zh · 62 tokens

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

Analyze Windows LNK shortcut files and Jump List artifacts to establish evidence of file access, program execution, and user activity using LECmd, JLECmd, and manual binary parsing of the Shell Link Binary format.

26zl/cybersec-toolkit · 56 tokens

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

Analyze Windows LNK shortcut files and Jump List artifacts to establish evidence of file access, program execution, and user activity using LECmd, JLECmd, and manual binary parsing of the Shell Link Binary format.

plurigrid/asi · 56 tokens

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

Analyze Windows LNK shortcut files and Jump List artifacts to establish evidence of file access, program execution, and user activity using LECmd, JLECmd, and manual binary parsing of the Shell Link Binary format.

pinkpixel-dev/skills-collection-1 · 56 tokens

analyzing-lnk-file-and-jump-list-artifacts

Analyze Windows LNK shortcut files and Jump List artifacts to establish evidence of file access, program execution, and user activity using LECmd, JLECmd, and manual binary parsing of the Shell Link Binary format.

marysatasselshaped667/skills-collection-1 · 56 tokens