GodRAT – New RAT targeting financial institutions


In September 2024, Kaspersky researchers detected malicious activity targeting financial (trading and brokerage) firms through the distribution of malicious .scr (screen saver) files disguised as financial documents via Skype messenger.

The threat actor deployed a newly identified Remote Access Trojan (RAT) named GodRAT, which is based on the Gh0st RAT codebase. To evade detection, the attackers used steganography to embed shellcode within image files. This shellcode downloads GodRAT from a Command-and-Control (C2) server. GodRAT supports additional plugins. Once installed, attackers utilized the FileManager plugin to explore the victim’s systems and deployed browser password stealers to extract credentials.

Read more…
Source: Kaspersky


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Chinese hack exposes data of 5,000 Italian counterterrorism officers

    February 18, 2026

    Personal data of roughly 5,000 Italian Digos officers — including names, roles and postings — was reportedly obtained by hackers linked to China after a cyber intrusion into the Interior Ministry’s network between 2024 and 2025. The breach potentially exposes officers involved in counterterrorism and monitoring Chinese dissidents, raising serious national security concerns and complicating Italy’s ...

  • Data breach at fintech giant Figure affects close to a million customers

    February 18, 2026

    The data breach that hit blockchain-based lending giant Figure affected nearly a million customers, according to a security researcher. Last week, Figure confirmed a data breach allowed hackers to steal “a limited number of files” from its systems. The company did not provide specifics on what kind of data was stolen nor say how many customers ...

  • CVE-2026-2329: Critical Unauthenticated Stack Buffer Overflow in Grandstream GXP1600 VoIP Phones (FIXED)

    February 18, 2026

    Rapid7 Labs conducted a zero-day research project against the Grandstream GXP1600 series of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones. This research resulted in the discovery of a critical unauthenticated stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability, CVE-2026-2329. A remote attacker can leverage CVE-2026-2329 to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) with root privileges on a target device. A vendor ...

  • Divide and conquer: how the new Keenadu backdoor exposed links between major Android botnets

    February 17, 2026

    In April 2025, Kaspersky reported on a then-new iteration of the Triada backdoor that had compromised the firmware of counterfeit Android devices sold across major marketplaces. The malware was deployed to the system partitions and hooked into Zygote – the parent process for all Android apps – to infect any app on the device. This allowed ...

  • China remains embedded in US energy networks ‘for the purpose of taking it down’

    February 17, 2026

    Three new threat groups began targeting critical infrastructure last year, while a well-known Beijing-backed crew – Volt Typhoon – continued to compromise cellular gateways and routers, and then break into US electric, oil, and gas companies in 2025, according to Dragos’ annual threat report published on Tuesday. Dragos specializes in operational technology (OT) security, and as ...

  • OpenClaw AI agents targeted by infostealer malware for the first time

    February 17, 2026

    Thanks to its overnight success and widespread adoption, OpenClaw has painted a large target on its back and is now being attacked by infostealers, after security researchers Hudson Rock claimed to have seen a first-of-its-kind attack in the wild. OpenClaw (previously known as Clawdbot and Moltbot) is an open source AI assistant software designed to actually ...