Threat actor

Smoke Sandstorm

1 mentions in 7 days · 2 in 30 days · 2 total · first seen Sep 1, 2026 · last 6d ago

Timeline2 articles

Iran-Linked Hackers Use Fake LinkedIn Job Offers to Deploy NodeRabbit and PollCat RATs

Iran-linked Mirage Kitten targets software engineers with fake LinkedIn recruiter coding tests deploying new NodeRabbit and PollCat RATs.

Kaspersky researchers link the campaign to Mirage Kitten (also tracked as UNC1549, Smoke Sandstorm, Nimbus Manticore), with victims in aviation, aerospace and fintech in Egypt, Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Trojanized npm dependencies (colorized_terminal, pretty-log) bundled in coding-challenge archives launch the Node.js implants across Windows, Linux and macOS. NodeRabbit uses AES-256-GCM-encrypted C2 via Azure, and its third variant persists through a fake GitHub Copilot Helper VS Code extension plus Git post-merge/post-checkout hooks. PollCat is an obfuscated JavaScript RAT that registers with C2 before OTP authentication and inventories tools from 24 security vendors.

GBHackersupdated Sep 9, 14:07 UTC · 6d agofirst Sep 9, 12:52 UTC · 6d agoThreat actor in the wild 2 sources1

Iranian cyber spies target aviation, fintech developers with new malware

Kaspersky links Iranian espionage group Mirage Kitten to fake job offers delivering new NodeRabbit and PollCat malware at aviation and fintech targets.

Kaspersky attributes the campaign to Iran-linked Mirage Kitten (also tracked as UNC1549, Smoke Sandstorm and Nimbus Manticore), which targeted developers and specialists in Egypt, Ethiopia and Afghanistan via fake recruiter contacts on LinkedIn and job platforms. Victims were lured into running malicious coding assessments that deployed two previously unknown families: NodeRabbit, a cross-platform RAT for Windows, Linux and macOS, and PollCat, which provides persistence and delivers additional payloads. The group masks activity behind legitimate Microsoft Azure and Cloudflare infrastructure, sometimes embedding victim organization names in Azure subdomains. The group has been active since at least 2022, focusing on aviation, aerospace and financial technology sectors in Africa and the Middle East.

The RecordSep 1, 12:38 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor1

Appears with

threat actor Mirage Kitten 2 threat actor Nimbus Manticore 2 threat actor UNC1549 2 malware NodeRabbit 2 malware PollCat 2 vendor Kaspersky 2 vendor Microsoft 2 organization Kaspersky 1 organization LinkedIn 1 organization Microsoft 1 product Azure 1 product GitHub Copilot 1 product NodeRabbit 1 product PollCat 1 product Visual Studio Code 1 vendor Amazon 1

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