Bharatvaj Hemanth
2016-10-18
Did I just say RAT, yes I certainly did and I did not mention those nosy little guys. I am talking about the Remote Administrative Tool(RAT). These are computer programs that run on remote machine, so data can be accessed by it’s owner anywhere in the world. They look harmless and useful, right? Normally they are. But what if a hacker re-configured the RAT to run in incognito in other people’s machine without their consent. Harmless? I don’t think so. These tools usually runs in previlidged access, so with this hackers can do whatever they want like they are sitting in front of your PC.
There are many RATs in World Wide Web and some of them are even open sourced. Meaning anyone in the world have access to RAT source code. These websitse are not being banned since they host them as a “educational material”.
I want to highlight some things that hackers do to the host machine, so you may find the depth of this fearful trojan.
What if the hacker delets your work files or a school project that you have been working for a long time.
Scary, right?
Even worse, if you don’t have an Anti-Virus software with you, there is high chance of someone monitoring you, like right now.
First of all, you must have an Anti-Virus if you are serious about your data.
Your Anti-Virus detects virus by comparing it with viruses detected so far in global sense, that’s the reason why it asks you to update it’s database of virus knowledge very frequently. So, make sure you update your Anti-Virus as it becomes available.
The major nightmare for a RAT is to bypass the the firewall security, so configure your Firewall to allow only trusted applications and set rules of your own.
If you ever downloaded a video and it gets saved as .exe donot open. That’s 100% RAT. Use your common sense. How can a video ever be a .exe file!
And don’t ever make a transaction or make a login in any website when you are using a public network. Free Wi-Fis are not always good.
RAT at initial stage when entered into your PC will be less sized and sleek, and will not bother you, atleast for sometime.
But once it gains access, it starts to download its payload which will teach the the RAT to monitor your stuff and stays with you permanently.
The hacker might also provide frequent updates to the RAT, making it FUD(Fully Undetectable)
Some RATs are designed just to fetch information and leave rather than staying.
That being all said, some RAT trojans are pranks that are most likely being controlled by a friend on April Fool’s Day or a holiday. Prank RATs are generally not harmful, and won’t log keystrokes or store information about the system on the computer. So if something happens like the screen getting flipped upside-down, the CD-ROM tray opening and closing, or mouse buttons gets swapped, it might probably be your friends playing a prank on you.
Hope this article gave you a understanding about RAT and Security. Cheers and happy Coding!