Brute Ratel C4 | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

An open source command-and-control (C2) framework known as Havoc is being adopted by threat actors as an alternative to other well-known legitimate toolkits like  Cobalt Strike ,  Sliver , and  Brute Ratel . Cybersecurity firm Zscaler said it observed a new campaign in the beginning of January 2023 targeting an unnamed government organization that utilized  Havoc . "While C2 frameworks are prolific, the open-source Havoc framework is an advanced post-exploitation command-and-control framework capable of bypassing the most current and updated version of Windows 11 defender due to the implementation of advanced evasion techniques such as indirect syscalls and sleep obfuscation," researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Shatak Jain  said . The attack sequence documented by Zscaler begins with a ZIP archive that embeds a decoy document and a screen-saver file that's designed to download and launch the Havoc Demon agent on the infected host. Demon is the implant generated via th

The threat actors behind the  Black Basta   ransomware family  have been observed using the Qakbot trojan to deploy the Brute Ratel C4 framework as a second-stage payload in recent attacks. The development marks the first time the  nascent adversary simulation software  is being delivered via a Qakbot infection, cybersecurity firm Trend Micro  said  in a technical analysis released last week. The intrusion, achieved using a phishing email containing a weaponized link pointing to a ZIP archive, further entailed the use of Cobalt Strike for lateral movement. While these legitimate utilities are designed for conducting penetration testing activities, their ability to offer remote access has made them a lucrative tool in the hands of attackers looking to stealthily probe the compromised environment without attracting attention for extended periods of time. This has been compounded by the fact that a  cracked version  of Brute Ratel C4 (BRc4 v1.2.2) began circulating last month across