RomCom RAT Distributed as Spoofed Versions of Popular IP Scanning Tool

The threat actor behind a remote access trojan, ‘RomCom RAT’ is now targeting Ukrainian military institutions. The threat actors are known to spoof legitimate apps like ‘Advanced IP Scanner’ and ‘PDF Filler’ to drop backdoors on compromised systems.

Reports say the “Advanced IP Scanner” campaign occurred on July 23, 2022. When the victim installs a Trojanized bundle, it drops RomCom RAT into the system.

Later, the enhanced evasion techniques by obfuscation of all strings, and execution as a COM object, happened on October 10, 2022,

RomCom RAT Distributed as Spoofed Versions

Previously, RomCom RAT was distributed via fake websites spoofing the legitimate “Advanced IP Scanner” application website. The Trojanized “Advanced IP Scanner” package was hosted on “advanced-ip-scaner[.]com” and “advanced-ip-scanners[.]com” domains.

Particularly, these domains resolved to the same IP address of 167[.]71[.]175[.]165. The threat actor spoofed the “pdfFiller” website, dropping a Trojanized version with RomCom RAT as the final payload.

The BlackBerry Research and Intelligence team has identified two versions of it, “Advanced_IP_Scanner_V2.5.4594.1.zip” and “advancedipscanner.msi.” 

Researchers say the threat actor spoofed the legitimate tools named “Advanced_IP_Scanner_2.5.4594.1.exe” by adding a single letter “V” to the file’s name. Once unpacked, it holds 27 files, of which four are malicious droppers.

RomCom gathers system information (disk and files information enumeration), and information about locally installed applications and memory processes. It also takes screenshots and transmits collected data to the hardcoded command-and-control (C2). If a special command is received, it supports auto-deletion from the victim’s machine.

“The threat actor behind the RomCom RAT targeted the military institutions of Ukraine. The initial infection vector is an email with an embedded link leading to a fake website dropping the next stage downloader”, BlackBerry Research and Intelligence team

The original link leads with a lure in the Ukrainian language spoofing the original Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Website

Final Word

Therefore, the RomCom RAT threat actor is actively developing new techniques targeting victims worldwide. It’s highly possible to expect new threat actor campaigns. 

Researchers also found the RomCom threat actor targeting IT companies, food brokers, and food manufacturing in the U.S., Brazil, and the Philippines.

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