DNSMessenger
- Malware type
- rat
- Family
- Malware family
- Profile updated
- 2026-07-07 15:30:19
Targeted industries: government-and-public-sector financial-services technology-and-telecommunications
Context
Talos recently analyzed an interesting malware sample that made use of DNS TXT record queries and responses to create a bidirectional Command and Control (C2) channel. This allows the attacker to use DNS communications to submit new commands to be run on infected machines and return the results of the command execution to the attacker. This is an extremely uncommon and evasive way of administering a RAT. The use of multiple stages of Powershell with various stages being completely fileless indicates an attacker who has taken significant measures to avoid detection.
Related threat objects
- POWERSOURCE (malware)
- DNSMessenger (malware)
Reports & references
- Cisco Talos — Dnsmessenger (report)