Researchers have identified a new Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) operator called ‘EVLF DEV’ as being behind the creation of CypherRAT and CraxsRAT.

EVLF has been selling CraxsRAT, one of the most extremely dangerous Android RATs accessible today, for the past three years, with at least 100 lifetime licenses sold to date.

The CYFIRMA research team reports that “RATs can be used by attackers to remotely control a victim’s camera, location, and microphone”.

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Particularly, the code in the Android package created by the CraxsRAT builder is highly obfuscated, available in a variety of builds, and provides threat actors with choices for deploying malicious apps based on the type of attack.

“It can be ascertained with high confidence that EVLF is being operated by a man from Syria,” Cyfirma researchers said.

Malware Developer Uncovered

EVLF has developed an online shop for CraxsRAT on the surface web to prove its reliability to interested threat actors.

According to the information shared with Cyber Security News, after acquiring software from EVLF, certain threat actors eventually began giving away cracked (and, in some cases, backdoored) versions of the RATs to the black hat community. 

This dramatically increased the reachability of these RATs and the number of active users. To guarantee anonymity, all transactions for purchases are, of course, made in Cryptocurrency.

“We can confirm that CraxsRAT only targets Android devices. We believe that cracked versions of CraxsRAT builders (that are meant to run on Windows machines) are being distributed in forums with pre-existing backdoors of other malware/ransomware”, researchers said.

To obtain access to the device’s screen and keystrokes, the app must activate accessibility in settings. As a result, when the app installation is complete, the builder gives the threat actor access to alter the page that appears.

Threat actors utilize the quick install function to install software quickly and easily without requiring much user engagement, such as turning on accessibility. Threat actors then ask for the necessary authorization to carry out malicious actions.

Hence, users should take caution while installing apps, avoid clicking on dubious links or attachments, and only install apps from legitimate app stores to protect them from such threat actor efforts.

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