While monitoring Mirage Kitten activity, Kaspersky researchers uncovered a previously undocumented malware family that we dubbed NodeRabbit. The researchers identified the first sample on a system in Afghanistan. Further threat hunting revealed two additional, more advanced, variants: one on a system in Egypt and another on a system in Ethiopia.
NodeRabbit is a cross-platform remote access trojan (RAT) built with Node.js. It targets Windows, Linux, and macOS. Its operators deliver it through spear-phishing messages on LinkedIn and other job search platforms that contain trojanized coding challenge archives.
During the same investigation, the researchers discovered another previously undocumented malware family that we dubbed PollCat. Like NodeRabbit, PollCat is a cross-platform RAT, but it is written in obfuscated JavaScript also distributed through trojanized coding challenge archives.
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:
- This fake Apple app can unlock your Mac’s password vault
July 15, 2026
CrashStealer is a new macOS infostealer that masquerades as Apple’s CrashReporter component, uses an Apple‑notarized installer to slip past Gatekeeper, tricks users into handing over their password, and then systematically loots browsers, password managers, crypto wallets, and Keychain secrets before exfiltrating them in AES‑encrypted bundles. Researchers have been following the development of CrashStealer since May 2026. It ...
- New phishing campaign hits LastPass, Bitwarden users
July 15, 2026
Criminals have been found impersonating popular password managers LastPass and Bitwarden online in an attempt to trick users into sharing their login credentials, and thus access to a treasure trove of passwords and other secrets. LastPass recently issued a warning to its customers, raising awareness of the ongoing phishing campaign. However the scam also now seems to ...
- Top AI tools such as OpenClaw and Github Copilot can be hijacked to create new massive botnets
July 15, 2026
Your favorite AI service could be subverted to deploy code that turns your phone or PC into a botnet, according to researchers at Intuit, Technion, and Tel Aviv University. The technique has been given the name HalluSquatting, a portmanteau of adversarial hallucination squatting, and is similar to typosquatting in that it relies on a mistake in ...
- Warning: Scammers are using FaceTime to empty bank accounts
July 14, 2026
Apple is urging users to treat any suspicious FaceTime call or message as untrusted, especially if it involves payments, refunds, password resets, or requests for personal information. This warning appears in a broader Apple support article about scams that target iPhone and iPad users through social engineering. Apple says attackers may contact people by phone calls, FaceTime, text ...
- Microsoft tops last month’s record with 622 Patch Tuesday CVEs
July 14, 2026
Remember last month when we were awed by Microsoft’s record-setting Patch Tuesday that addressed 206 CVEs? That was a quaint era compared to this month: Redmond just rolled out patches for 622 CVEs specific to its products, slightly more than tripling last month’s all-time high. Redmond’s Patch Tuesday release is once again one for the record books, with everything under ...
- Ghostcommit attack hides malicious AI instructions in images
July 13, 2026
Ghostcommit is a proof of concept that shows how AI assistants used to review software code can be tricked by hidden instructions embedded in images. The academic ASSET Research Group showed that an attacker can place instructions inside an image file, point to it in an AGENTS.md file, and get an AI coding agent to follow those instructions during a ...