Cardinal RAT

MITRE ATT&CK: S0348 View on attack.mitre.org

Aliases: Cardinal RAT

First seen
2015-12-01 00:00:00
Malware type
rat
Family
Malware family
Operating systems
windows
Profile updated
2026-07-07 14:32:54

Targeted industries: financial-services technology-and-telecommunications

Context

Cardinal RAT is a potentially low volume remote access trojan (RAT) observed since December 2015. Cardinal RAT is notable for its unique utilization of uncompiled C# source code and the Microsoft Windows built-in csc.exe compiler.

Detection coverage

  • 455 Sigma rules

Malware & tools used

  • Windows Command Shell (attack-pattern)
  • Ingress Tool Transfer (attack-pattern)
  • File and Directory Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • System Owner/User Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Keylogging (attack-pattern)
  • Symmetric Cryptography (attack-pattern)
  • Malicious File (attack-pattern)
  • Archive via Library (attack-pattern)
  • Query Registry (attack-pattern)
  • Compile After Delivery (attack-pattern)
  • Proxy (attack-pattern)
  • Process Injection (attack-pattern)
  • File Deletion (attack-pattern)
  • Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information (attack-pattern)
  • System Information Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Fallback Channels (attack-pattern)
  • Web Protocols (attack-pattern)
  • Modify Registry (attack-pattern)
  • Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder (attack-pattern)
  • Process Discovery (attack-pattern)
  • Screen Capture (attack-pattern)
  • Encrypted/Encoded File (attack-pattern)

Reports & references

  • Palo Alto Unit 42 — Cardinal Rat Sins Again Targets Israeli Fin Tech Firms (report)
  • clearskysec.com — Clearsky 2019 H1 Cyber Events Summary Report (report)
  • cocomelonc.github.io — Simple Malware Av Evasion (report)
  • cocomelonc.github.io — Malware Av Evasion 8 (report)
  • picussecurity.com — Picus 10 Critical Mitre Attck Techniques T1055 Process Injection (report)
  • malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de — Win.Cardinal Rat (report)
  • researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com — Unit42 Cardinal Rat Active Two Years (report)
  • MITRE ATT&CK — S0348 (report)
  • researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com — Unit42 Cardinal Rat Active Two Years (report)

External references