A Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator is analyzing a malware sample named "payload.exe". They have run the malware on a test workstation, and used a tool named WhatChanged Portable to monitor host integrity by capturing the system state before and after the malware execution. After comparing these two snapshots, the investigator observes that an entry named CjNWWyUJ has been created under the Run registry key with value C:\Users\
The malware has created an entry under the Run registry key to ensure that a vbscript (xKNkeLQI.vbs) is executed every time the system starts. This indicates that the malware is designed to persist on the system by automatically running at startup, which is consistent with the behavior of maintaining a persistent connection with the machine.
By examining the text file containing the modified registry keys, you can observe that the malware named Payload.exe has created an entry under the Run registry key named CjNWWyUJ, whose value is C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Temp\xKNkeLQI.vbs. This means the vbscript xKNkeLQI.vbs is in C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Temp\ and runs on startup, thereby trying to create a persistent connection with the machine where the malware is created.