Researchers have discovered a new attack framework of Chinese origin that they believe is being used in the wild. The framework is made up of a command-and-control (C2) backend dubbed Alchimist and an accompanying customizable remote access Trojan (RAT) for Windows and Linux machines. The framework can also be used to generate PowerShell-based attack shellcode or distribute malicious implants for other platforms such as macOS.
“Our discovery of Alchimist is yet another indication that threat actors are rapidly adopting off-the-shelf C2 frameworks to carry out their operations,” researchers from Cisco Talos said in a new report. “A similar ready-to-go C2 framework called ‘Manjusaka’ was recently disclosed by Talos.”
