The Invisible Intruder: The Fusion of Remote Access Tools and Hacker Automation

How not to feed white-hat researchers all your stolen data, or if you aren't a criminal...why isn't my malware sample trying to steal any data?

Introduction

The modern cybersecurity threat landscape is defined by its speed and autonomy. While ransomware has traditionally been the headline-grabbing threat, a more insidious and sophisticated form of attack is emerging: the fusion of remote access tools (RATs) with hacker automation. This white paper will explore how attackers are leveraging pre-built surveillance and theft capabilities within remote access tools to conduct completely autonomous operations. It will contrast the network dependencies of these attacks with the more self-sufficient nature of ransomware and detail the new hybrid methodologies attackers are employing to achieve both rapid and long-term data theft.

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The Evolution of Remote Access Tools as an Attack Vector