NetSupport RAT | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The financially motivated threat actor known as  FIN7  has been observed leveraging malicious Google ads spoofing legitimate brands as a means to deliver MSIX installers that culminate in the deployment of  NetSupport RAT . "The threat actors used malicious websites to impersonate well-known brands, including AnyDesk, WinSCP, BlackRock, Asana, Concur, The Wall Street Journal, Workable, and Google Meet," cybersecurity firm eSentire  said  in a report published earlier this week. FIN7 (aka Carbon Spider and Sangria Tempest) is a  persistent e-crime group  that's been active since 2013, initially dabbling in attacks targeting point-of-sale (PoS) devices to steal payment data, before pivoting to breaching large firms via ransomware campaigns. Over the years, the threat actor has refined its tactics and cyber weapon arsenal, adopting  various   custom malware  families such as BIRDWATCH, Carbanak, DICELOADER...

A new phishing campaign is targeting U.S. organizations with the intent to deploy a remote access trojan called NetSupport RAT. Israeli cybersecurity company Perception Point is tracking the activity under the moniker  Operation PhantomBlu . "The PhantomBlu operation introduces a nuanced exploitation method, diverging from NetSupport RAT's typical delivery mechanism by leveraging OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) template manipulation, exploiting Microsoft Office document templates to execute malicious code while evading detection," security researcher Ariel Davidpur  said . NetSupport RAT is a  malicious offshoot  of a legitimate remote desktop tool known as NetSupport Manager, allowing threat actors to conduct a spectrum of data gathering actions on a compromised endpoint. The starting point is a salary-themed phishing email that purports to be from the accounting department and urges recipients to open the attached Microsoft Word document to view the "mont...

Threat actors are targeting the education, government and business services sectors with a remote access trojan called  NetSupport RAT . "The delivery mechanisms for the NetSupport RAT encompass fraudulent updates, drive-by downloads, utilization of malware loaders (such as  GHOSTPULSE ), and various forms of phishing campaigns," VMware Carbon Black researchers said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The cybersecurity firm said it detected no less than 15 new infections related to NetSupport RAT in the last few weeks.  While NetSupport Manager started off as a  legitimate remote administration tool  for technical assistance and support, malicious actors have misappropriated the tool to their own advantage, using it as a beachhead for subsequent attacks. NetSupport RAT is typically downloaded onto a victim's computer via deceptive websites and fake browser updates. In August 2022, Sucuri  detailed  a campaign in which compromised WordPress...

I had the honor of hosting the first episode of the Xposure Podcast live from Xposure Summit 2025. And I couldn't have asked for a better kickoff panel: three cybersecurity leaders who don't just talk security, they live it. Let me introduce them. Alex Delay , CISO at IDB Bank, knows what it means to defend a highly regulated environment. Ben Mead , Director of Cybersecurity at Avidity Biosciences, brings a forward-thinking security perspective that reflects the innovation behind Avidity's targeted RNA therapeutics. Last but not least, Michael Francess , Director of Cybersecurity Advanced Threat at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, leads the charge in protecting the franchise. Each brought a unique vantage point to a common challenge: applying Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) to complex production environments. Gartner made waves in 2023 with a bold prediction: organizations that prioritize CTEM will be three times less likely to be breached by 2026. But here's the kicker -...