Exploring a New KimJongRAT Stealer Variant and Its PowerShell Implementation


This article provides a comprehensive analysis of two new variants of the KimJongRAT stealer.

Palo Alto Unit 42 combine new research findings with existing knowledge to provide a comprehensive resource for understanding and combating these new KimJongRAT variants. The KimJongRAT stealer was first described in 2013 by the Malware.lu CERT. Palo Alto researchers documented another variant of this family in 2019. One of the new variants uses a Portable Executable (PE) file and the other uses a PowerShell implementation. The PE and PowerShell variants are both initiated by clicking a Windows shortcut (LNK) file that downloads a dropper file from an attacker-controlled content delivery network (CDN) account.

Read more…
Source: Palo Alto Unit 42


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • North Korean hackers blamed for $290M crypto theft

    April 20, 2026

    Over the weekend, hackers stole more than $290 million in cryptocurrency from Kelp DAO, a protocol that allows users to earn yields on idle crypto investments. By Monday, LayerZero, one of the projects affected by the hack, accused North Korea of carrying out the heist. The hack is now the largest crypto theft of the year ...

  • Mythos: An AI tool too powerful for public release

    April 20, 2026

    Anthropic’s most capable model to date, Claude Mythos Preview (aka Mythos), has been described as a “step change” in AI performance, especially on cybersecurity tasks. Anthropic tried to keep Mythos a secret until a few weeks ago, when a data leak revealed the existence of what the company said was its most powerful artificial intelligence to ...

  • Hackers are abusing Apple account notifications to distribute malware, steal money and data

    April 20, 2026

    Scammers have found a way to abuse Apple’s email notification system to deliver phishing messages and trick people into giving away sensitive data and system access. Recently, people started receiving emails from the email.apple.com domain, notifying them of a $899 iPhone purchase via PayPal. The email also shared a phone number for the victims to call, ...

  • NIST changes enrichment process for National Vulnerability Database due to surge in CVE submissions

    April 20, 2026

    The number of reported vulnerabilities has surged so sharply that it forced the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to change how it ‘enriches’ each entry. Until now, NIST would take a basic CVE record and add structured analysis, to make it more useful in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD). That usually includes severity scoring ...

  • UK: Military reviews Army’s use of Chinese technology to make weapons

    April 18, 2026

    The Defence Secretary has ordered an investigation after The Telegraph revealed that the British Army was using Chinese 3D printers to build weapons. Last year, it was revealed that British troops were taking the technology with them into the field and using it to make “suicide drones” for attack missions, despite national security concerns. Army officers said ...

  • Tracking Mirai Variant Nexcorium: A Vulnerability-Driven IoT Botnet Campaign

    April 17, 2026

    IoT devices are increasingly prime targets for large-scale attacks due to their widespread use, lack of patching, and often weak security settings. Threat actors continue exploiting known vulnerabilities to gain initial access and deploy malware that can persist, spread, and cause distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. FortiGuard Labs has analyzed a recent campaign exploiting CVE-2024-3721 in TBK ...