CrowdStrike researchers have documented how Microsoft’s ClickOnce deployment technology, a legitimate feature built into Windows and Visual Studio, can be repurposed as a malware delivery channel without requiring administrator privileges or significant user interaction. Because ClickOnce’s trust model lacks mandatory integrity verification at the deployment layer, attackers can serve malicious payloads through web servers or network file shares in a way that bypasses conventional installation controls. This research signals a maturing attacker interest in abusing trusted platform mechanisms rather than exploiting discrete software vulnerabilities, a pattern that demands defenders re-examine assumptions about what constitutes a safe application delivery channel.