Search: “NodeEdgeRAT”

SloppyRAT: A New Tool For Ransomware Attacks

Zscaler details SloppyRAT, a new DLL backdoor delivered via ClickFix lures that stages CastleLoader and CastleRAT ahead of ransomware attacks.

Zscaler ThreatLabz analyzed SloppyRAT, a DLL-based backdoor distributed via ClickFix lures that abuses finger.exe over TCP port 79 to download a batch script. The malware copies curl.exe to download IronPython 3.4.2 from GitHub and executes zlib-compressed Base64-encoded Python to deploy CastleLoader and CastleRAT, then reflectively loads SloppyRAT in memory. It hinders analysis using XOR stack-string obfuscation, a modified affine cipher with modulus 127, and 13 runtime-decrypted code blocks, while communicating with C2 over a reverse SOCKS channel.

Zscaler ThreatLabz·updated Sep 11, 09:12 UTC · 5d ago·first Sep 10, 14:43 UTC · 6d agoMalware in the wild 3 sources

Hackers Exploit FortiGate SSL-VPN Flaw to Breach Thai ISP and Deploy MeshCentral Backdoor

Threat actors exploited FortiOS SSL-VPN flaw CVE-2024-21762 to breach Thai ISP Triple T Broadband, gaining root-level persistence via MeshCentral agents.

Attackers exploited CVE-2024-21762, an out-of-bounds write enabling unauthenticated RCE in FortiOS SSL-VPN, against Triple T Broadband's FortiGate 60F at mail.3bb.co.th, launching a Node.js reverse shell via a ROP payload. Hunt.io uncovered the operation through an exposed staging directory at 92.63.180[.]133:8888 containing 298 files of exploits, credential-harvesting scripts, session cookies, and a device inventory. Post-compromise, the actors deployed MeshCentral agents (device group TH-3BB, C2 www.ayuthayatech.com) running as root, plus a hidden SUID backdoor at /usr/local/bin/.rc, and also targeted an internal Pentaho/Tomcat server with Ghostcat (CVE-2020-1938). A cleanup script removed logs, shell histories, and web shells while deliberately preserving the MeshCentral agent and SUID backdoor.

GBHackers·Sep 15, 05:20 UTC · 1d agoExploit / PoC in the wild 3 sourcesCVE-2024-21762CVE-2020-1938

SilkParasite Espionage Campaign Targets Central Asian Governments with Five New RATs

Bitdefender reports SilkParasite, a China-nexus espionage cluster targeting Central Asian governments with seven RATs, five newly documented, delivered via spearphished RAR archives.

Bitdefender Labs assesses with medium confidence that SilkParasite, first discovered in late 2025, is a China-nexus cluster targeting government bodies in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. Attacks use password-protected RAR archives with malicious Office documents, macro-triggered DLL sideloading, and checks for running Kaspersky AV before execution. The arsenal spans seven RAT families in .NET, C++, Go, and JavaScript with plugin architectures and diverse C2 channels including Google Drive and HTTP cookie/ETag headers; roughly 65 DriveSilkRAT infections were observed, mostly in Asia. Ties to China include BLOODALCHEMY (a Deed RAT/ShadowPad descendant) and an improved SpiceRAT used by SneakyChef, with traces of AI-assisted development in the tooling and lures.

The Hacker News·Aug 20, 05:47 UTC · 27d agoThreat actor in the wild

Operationalize CTEM with NodeZero®

Horizon3.ai publishes a factsheet on operationalizing Continuous Threat Exposure Management with NodeZero and its CTEM Operating Loop.

Horizon3.ai released a factsheet describing how its CTEM Operating Loop and NodeZero platform turn Continuous Threat Exposure Management into a repeatable process. The workflow covers discovering, validating, prioritizing, remediating, and verifying exploitable exposures. The item is vendor marketing material rather than new vulnerability disclosure or threat intelligence.

Horizon3.ai·Aug 24, 18:19 UTC · 22d agoTools

Risky Bulletin: Academics find source code overlaps between Geedge and China's Great Firewall

Academics linked Chinese vendor Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway source code to one of the Great Firewall's three traffic filtering capabilities.

US researchers presenting at USENIX Security reconstructed Geedge Networks' Tiangou Secure Gateway firmware from over 100,000 leaked files, including Git repositories with commit history, and matched its filtering behavior to sections of China's Great Firewall. They found only 1 of 3 characterized DNS injectors matched Geedge code, noted the system relies on memory-unsafe C components and copied third-party code, and said its bugs could aid future circumvention tools. Geedge also exports censorship tools to Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. The newsletter additionally rounds up multiple breaches.

Risky Business News·Aug 21, 02:55 UTC · 26d agoResearch2

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.

GBHackers·Sep 9, 12:52 UTC · 7d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Iran-linked APT Mirage Kitten Uses Fake Job Tests to Spread Malware

Kaspersky reports Iran-linked Mirage Kitten delivers new NodeRabbit and PollCat malware to fintech and aviation targets via fake LinkedIn coding assessments.

Kaspersky researchers documented two previously undocumented Node.js malware families, NodeRabbit and PollCat, attributed with high confidence to Iran-linked APT group Mirage Kitten. The malware is delivered via fake recruiter personas on LinkedIn offering coding assessments hosted on Amazon S3, with instructions banning AI assistants so AI code-review tools would not flag the trojanized npm packages. NodeRabbit is cross-platform (Windows, Linux, macOS), uses AES-256-GCM-encrypted C2 on Azure, includes sandbox checks, and one variant installs a fake 'GitHub Copilot Helper' VS Code extension plus Git hook persistence. Victims identified so far are in fintech and aviation organizations across Egypt, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

Security Affairs·Sep 2, 10:37 UTC · 14d agoThreat actor in the wild2

Drowning in CVEs and thirsty for answers? Try CTEM

Sponsored Register piece argues traditional vulnerability management cannot scale with CVE volume and promotes Continuous Threat Exposure Management via Horizon3's NodeZero.

The sponsored article cites surging CVE volumes, CVSS triage shortcomings, NVD backlog, and AI-driven discovery accelerating an asymmetric vulnerability cycle. It outlines Gartner's five CTEM steps - scoping, discovery, prioritization, validation, and mobilization - and describes how Horizon3's NodeZero automated pentesting validates exploitable attack paths with evidence. Horizon3 says NodeZero uses a deterministic machine learning expert system rather than general LLMs, limiting generative AI to scoped tasks via AWS Bedrock.

The Register · Security·Sep 3, 15:00 UTC · 13d agoIndustry

Attackers Turn Trusted Node.js Runtime Into Malware Delivery Tool in Targeted Attacks

Symantec reports multiple threat actors, including KongTuke, abusing the trusted signed Node.js runtime and blockchain C2 (EtherHiding) to deliver backdoors in targeted attacks.

Symantec's Threat Hunter Team (Broadcom) reports that since February 2026 attackers have used the legitimate signed node.exe binary and interpreted scripts to deliver implants while evading signature-based detection, hitting government departments, technology companies, and hotels. One intrusion at an Asian technology firm (March 23–July 25, 2026) used ClickFix social engineering, the official Node.js installer, and EtherHiding to fetch commands via the Ethereum blockchain after AdaptixC2 and Cobalt Strike attempts were blocked. Related chains involve KongTuke (Woodgnat) using ModeloRAT, Mistic, NexShield, and GateKeeper, plus C2Looper, AsukaStealer, and EtherRAT; GuidePoint Security separately linked a fake-CAPTCHA ClickFix campaign to at least 31 compromised organizations using the Polygon blockchain as a dynamic C2 address book.

The Hacker News·Sep 3, 10:43 UTC · 13d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Security Data Isn’t the Problem. Security Context Is.

Horizon3 blog argues security context, not data volume, is the SOC bottleneck, promoting its NodeZero integration with CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM.

Horizon3.ai published a vendor blog explaining how its NodeZero Proactive Security Platform integration with CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM brings validated exposure findings into existing security operations workflows. The post argues SOCs are now limited by confidence rather than visibility, needing context to decide which issues matter. It cites a global chemical manufacturer that validated exploitable exposures with NodeZero before completing a $2 billion merger.

Horizon3.ai·Sep 15, 13:12 UTC · 1d agoTools

Horizon3 Announces Integration with CrowdStrike Falcon® Next-Gen SIEM

Horizon3 announces NodeZero integration pushing validated exposure findings into CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM for correlated investigations.

Horizon3 announced an integration enabling validated NodeZero findings to flow into CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, available now in the CrowdStrike Marketplace. Security teams can ingest and correlate exposure data with endpoint, identity, cloud, and other telemetry during investigations. CrowdStrike claims Falcon Next-Gen SIEM delivers up to 150x faster search than legacy SIEMs at up to 80% lower total cost of ownership.

Horizon3.ai·Sep 15, 13:10 UTC · 1d agoTools

PEEP Turns Chrome and Edge Into Post-Compromise Backdoors for Host Command Execution

SOCRadar disclosed PEEP, a post-exploitation Chromium extension toolkit that turns Chrome and Edge into host-level backdoors via native messaging and C2 polling.

SOCRadar researchers detailed PEEP, a Chromium-based post-exploitation toolkit masquerading as a 'Smart Bookmarks' extension injected directly into Chrome and Edge profiles by forging Secure Preferences integrity values, bypassing Web Store checks. A native-messaging host binary (nm_host.exe) extends the browser agent to host-level command execution, file management, credential theft, and session hijacking, while the extension polls C2 endpoints at 206.237.30.232 or xfjcc.fun every 30 seconds over plaintext HTTP and exfiltrates browsing history, cookies, and tab metadata. PEEP is derived from the open-source RedExt red teaming framework, adds PowerShell persistence scripts, and includes a Linux-targeting Python script, suggesting cross-platform intent. The activity is unattributed but contains Chinese-language artifacts; a C2 /health endpoint showed 34 agent entries and 10 active sessions.

The Hacker News·Sep 7, 18:12 UTC · 8d agoMalware in the wild1

Edge infrastructure under siege: what two independent datasets reveal about who's exploiting your perimeter

Joint Tenable-SentinelOne analysis of 93 CVE-actor attribution pairs shows nation-state and criminal groups independently converge on the same edge infrastructure.

Tenable and SentinelOne jointly analyzed 93 CVE-actor attribution pairs covering exploitation of perimeter devices. The data shows state-sponsored and financially motivated actors independently target the same edge products from Ivanti, Fortinet, and Palo Alto Networks. The findings challenge the narrative that edge exploitation is exclusively a China-nexus nation-state problem, showing a broader shared attack surface.

Tenable Blog·Aug 26, 13:00 UTC · 21d agoThreat actor in the wild

How a Real Estate Company Turned a SQL Lockout Into Actionable Security Insight

A real estate company used Horizon3.ai's NodeZero to trace a SQL account lockout to a hidden privilege path and remediate it.

A Horizon3.ai customer story describes a large real estate company using NodeZero to investigate a SQL account lockout. The assessment traced the lockout to a deeper privilege path in the environment. The findings reportedly drove immediate remediation of the exposed privilege risk.

Horizon3.ai·Aug 25, 12:54 UTC · 22d agoTools

Hackers Use Fake LinkedIn Job Offers to Infect Developers With New Cross-Platform RATs

Iran-linked Mirage Kitten uses fake LinkedIn job challenges to deliver new cross-platform RATs NodeRabbit and PollCat to developers in fintech, aviation, and aerospace.

PolySwarm documented a campaign by Iran-linked Mirage Kitten (UNC1549) that uses fake recruiter personas and technical hiring challenges on LinkedIn to deliver the newly documented RATs NodeRabbit and PollCat, which run on Windows, Linux, and macOS. A challenge archive bundles a fake npm package (colorized_terminal 2.1.0) in node_modules that loads NodeRabbit, while a React-based challenge delivers PollCat with an attacker-controlled OTP screen. NodeRabbit persists through a malicious Visual Studio Code extension and Git post-merge/post-checkout hooks; PollCat persists via scheduled tasks, cron, and LaunchAgents. Victims were observed in fintech, aviation, and aerospace, with confirmed targets in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

Cyber Security News·Sep 9, 14:07 UTC · 7d agoMalware in the wild

Are Unreachable Nodes Truly Safe? Fully Eclipsing Monero's P2P Network!

Researchers present Nyx and Moros, the first eclipse attacks against Monero nodes behind NATs, requiring no inbound access and demonstrated on mainnet.

The paper presents the first eclipse attacks tailored to unreachable Monero nodes operating behind NATs, requiring no inbound access to the victim. The attacks poison the peerlists of reachable nodes, which relay contamination to unreachable nodes' whitelists, then exploit Monero's outbound connection refresh logic to evict benign neighbors and monopolize all outbound connections. Nyx achieves a complete, persistent eclipse of long-running unreachable nodes in large-scale SEED Emulator simulations, while Moros stealthily eclipses newly joined nodes during bootstrapping and was demonstrated on the Monero mainnet. Countermeasures are proposed.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 9, 14:43 UTC · 7d agoResearch

Five Eyes Guidance Improve Edge

Five Eyes intelligence agencies issued joint guidance aimed at improving security of edge network devices.

Based on the headline, Five Eyes cyber agencies released guidance recommending organizations improve the security posture of edge devices such as routers and remote-access appliances. No article text is available, so specific recommendations are unavailable.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 19, 00:00 UTC · 28d agoAdvisory

Hackers Actively Exploiting FortiGate Firewalls to Deploy Custom Node.js Malware

Attackers actively exploit CVE-2025-25249 in FortiGate firewalls to deploy PivotC2, a Node.js RAT that decrypts VPN and admin credentials.

SOCRadar assesses with high confidence that threat actors are actively exploiting CVE-2025-25249, a CVSS 9.8 heap buffer overflow in the cw_acd daemon (CAPWAP, UDP 5246) affecting FortiOS 6.4-7.6.3 and FortiSwitchManager 7.0.x/7.2.x. Attackers deploy fortirun.bin and PivotC2, a Node.js post-exploitation framework that harvests configurations and decrypts SSL-VPN, wireless, and admin credentials using AES-256-CBC and AES-128-GCM. Over 30,000 FortiGate IPs were scanned and 178 devices compromised, including two confirmed full intrusions of US organizations with Exchange mailbox exfiltration to Wasabi storage. STRU attributes the campaign to a Russian-speaking, financially motivated cybercrime operator.

Cyber Security News·Sep 8, 16:50 UTC · 7d agoExploit / PoC in the wildCVE-2025-252491

Patch Tuesday to Pentest Wednesday: How an Equipment Rental Company Is Turning Continuous Testing Into Continuous Exposure Management

An equipment rental company uses Horizon3 NodeZero for continuous exposure management, surfacing an SSH key exposure in eight hours versus annual pentesting.

The company moved from periodic penetration testing to continuous exposure management using the NodeZero Proactive Security Platform, feeding telemetry into a Splunk-based CTEM pipeline via Horizon3 APIs. NodeZero exposed SSH RSA key pairs from a PHP web server change about eight hours after introduction and found more findings in 12 hours than a third-party engagement found in roughly 30 days. An Active Directory password audit of 15,000 passwords found about 300 identical or similar compromised passwords, driving a banned-password list, 12-character minimums, service desk changes, and self-service reset rollout; users with similar passwords later dropped from 880 to 209. NodeZero also validated a suspected Cisco vulnerability as exploitable.

Horizon3.ai·Sep 9, 15:58 UTC · 7d agoIndustry

PEEP: A Browser RAT Posing as a Chrome Extension

SOCRadar's STRU analyzed PEEP, an emerging Chromium-based RAT disguised as a Chrome extension enabling post-exploitation control of browsers.

SOCRadar's Threat Research Unit (STRU) identified and analyzed PEEP, a Chromium-based post-exploitation toolkit distributed as a browser extension. PEEP provides RAT-style capabilities while posing as a legitimate Chrome extension. It is assessed as an emerging threat worth monitoring by defenders.

SOCRadar·Sep 4, 09:50 UTC · 12d agoMalware

Disruptive cyber activity highlights risk from internet-exposed systems and edge devices

NCSC links disruptive cyber activity to internet-exposed systems and edge devices, urging OT owners to fix avoidable vulnerabilities and improve resilience.

The UK's NCSC issued guidance following disruptive cyber activity that highlights the risk to internet-exposed systems and edge devices. It encourages owners of operational technology to remediate avoidable vulnerabilities and invest in long-term cyber resilience. The notice underscores that exposed edge devices remain a common entry point for attackers against OT environments.

NCSC UK·Aug 27, 12:00 UTC · 20d agoAdvisory in the wild

19 Chrome and Edge Extensions Found With Wallet-Stealing and Crypto

Socket found 19 malicious Chrome and Edge extensions, active since February 2024, stealing wallet seed phrases and credentials and draining crypto from about 80,000 users.

Socket researcher Karlo Zanki documented a cluster of 18 Chrome and one Edge extensions with wallet secret stealing and cryptocurrency draining capabilities, tracked as campaign Superior and possibly active since February 2024. The actor created 14 extensions and bought five legitimate ones, later pushing malicious updates; the largest, Enable Right Click & Copy, has roughly 80,000 installs across both browsers. The extensions maintain WebSocket C2 connections with endpoint rotation, strip CSP headers, and load 16 modules including multi-chain wallet drainers, hardware-wallet seed-phrase harvesters, credential grabbers, and ClickFix-style lures.

The Hacker News·Aug 28, 15:27 UTC · 19d agoMalware in the wild

Evidence-Grounded Retrieval for Investigation Hunt Lead Generation from CTI Reports

AHLERT generates environment-aware threat hunting leads from CTI reports using ATT&CK-seeded knowledge graph retrieval, roughly doubling F1 over flat-RAG baselines.

The paper introduces AHLERT, a system that converts Cyber Threat Intelligence reports into structured, investigable hunt leads via hybrid dense retrieval with multi-hop traversal over an MITRE ATT&CK-seeded knowledge graph and ontology-grounded RAG constrained to the defender's assets. It is LLM-agnostic and evaluated on public CTI reports for well-known APTs across proprietary and open-weight models. Hybrid evidence retrieval with ontology grounding raises mean F1 from 0.44 to 0.85, and AHLERT attains the highest effectiveness score (~86.95%) versus off-the-shelf LLMs.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 8, 14:21 UTC · 8d agoResearch

ValleyRAT: When Legitimate Software Becomes a Malware Delivery Tool

Kaspersky details ValleyRAT delivered via trojanized QN Wallpaper using DLL sideloading, tied to Silver Fox and hitting 1,500+ users in China and India.

Kaspersky found a malicious installer abusing a modified version of the legitimate QN Wallpaper adware application to deliver the ValleyRAT backdoor via DLL sideloading of libcef.dll. The installer masquerades as DingTalk, Chrome or Tencent Meeting software, creates persistence, disables Windows Defender via the DisableAntiSpyware registry key, and loads AES-encrypted payloads. ValleyRAT collects keystrokes, clipboard contents and screenshots plus system details, can download additional modules, and resists removal by injecting into svchost.exe or marking its process critical. The campaign was detected over 100,000 times in 2026, affecting more than 1,500 users mainly in China and India, and is attributed to Silver Fox with both espionage and financial motives.

Security Affairs·Aug 31, 19:45 UTC · 15d agoMalware in the wild

Silver Fox Targets Japanese Manufacturer with 3

Chinese group Silver Fox used new vulnerable drivers and DLL side-loading to deploy ValleyRAT at a Japanese industrial manufacturer.

Cato Networks detailed a Silver Fox campaign against a Japanese industrial manufacturing organization combining new vulnerable-driver abuse (BootRepair.sys and EnPortv.sys alongside wsftprm.sys), DLL side-loading via Zeon Corporation PDF binaries, and NTDLL unhooking to deliver ValleyRAT (Winos 4.0), a Gh0st RAT variant. The chain starts with an invoice-themed phishing lure hosting attacker-controlled content on legitimate QQ and Tencent Cloud services. Shellcode is injected into svchost.exe via thread-context hijacking, and a dual watchdog design pairs payload monitoring with a scheduled-task batch script for persistence. A separate 180-day VirusTotal retrohunt found 146 Atlas RAT samples across six PDB builds, though the Silver Fox link remains circumstantial.

The Hacker News·Aug 27, 10:50 UTC · 20d agoThreat actor in the wild

Mirage Kitten targeting aviation and FinTech sectors across the Middle East and Africa with a new malware set

Kaspersky reports Mirage Kitten targeting aviation and fintech organizations across the Middle East and Africa with new NodeRabbit and PollCat backdoors.

Kaspersky researchers documented new Mirage Kitten operations against aviation and fintech organizations in the Middle East and Africa. The campaign uses two previously undocumented backdoors: NodeRabbit, written in Node.js, and PollCat, written in JavaScript. The findings expand the group's known toolset and TTPs.

Kaspersky Securelist·Sep 1, 07:00 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild1

ClickFix Campaign Compromises 31 Orgs, Abuses Polygon Blockchain

A ClickFix social engineering campaign compromised 31 organizations, abusing the Polygon blockchain via EtherHiding for dynamically updated command-and-control.

The campaign uses ClickFix-style social engineering to compromise victims, with 31 organizations affected. It employs EtherHiding to dynamically update its command-and-control server, abusing the Polygon blockchain as an attacker-controlled address book. This blockchain-based C2 approach makes the infrastructure more resilient and harder to take down.

Dark Reading·Sep 1, 13:56 UTC · 15d agoThreat actor in the wild

Hackers Exploit Critical FortiGate Flaw to Deploy AI-Assisted PivotC2 RAT

SOCRadar says attackers exploit FortiGate CVE-2025-25249 to deploy the PivotC2 Node.js RAT, compromising 178 of 30,000 targeted devices and stealing credentials.

SOCRadar's Threat Research Unit reports active exploitation of CVE-2025-25249, a CVSS 9.8 heap-based buffer overflow in the cw_acd daemon of FortiOS and FortiSwitchManager, via crafted CAPWAP requests to UDP port 5246, compromising at least 178 of 30,000 targeted internet-exposed FortiGate devices since July 2026. The campaign deploys PivotC2, a Node.js RAT that provides interactive shells, SOCKS5/HTTP proxying, port forwarding, network scanning, and automated configuration harvesting that decrypts stored FortiGate credentials, including VPN pre-shared keys, SSL-VPN credentials, and LDAP secrets. Russian-language artifacts, AD enumeration, browser credential theft, RDP enablement, and exfiltration of Exchange .pst files to Wasabi S3 point to a Russian-speaking, financially motivated group; two US organizations confirmed full-network intrusions. Fixes include FortiOS 7.6.4/7.4.9/7.2.12/7.0.18+ and FortiSwitchManager 7.2.7/7.0.6+, plus blocking CAPWAP on internet-facing interfaces.

GBHackers·Sep 9, 08:57 UTC · 7d agoMalware in the wildCVE-2025-252492

Horizon3.ai expands NodeZero with automated web application attack path testing

Help Net Security·Aug 3, 09:14 UTC · Aug 3, 2026Vulnerability1