Lazarus Group Enhances Malware Toolkit with PondRAT, ThemeForestRAT, and RemotePE
Sep 02, 2025
Malware / Threat Intelligence
The North Korea-linked threat actor, Lazarus Group, has been linked to a social engineering campaign that distributes three new cross-platform malware variants: PondRAT, ThemeForestRAT, and RemotePE. This attack, observed by NCC Group’s Fox-IT in 2024, specifically targeted an organization within the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, resulting in the breach of an employee’s system.
“As the actor accessed the internal network, they utilized various RATs along with other tools to collect credentials and establish proxy connections,” noted Yun Zheng Hu and Mick Koomen. “Subsequently, the attacker transitioned to a more stealthy RAT, indicating a potential progression in their attack strategy.”
The attack began with the threat actor impersonating a current employee of a trading firm via Telegram and using counterfeit websites resembling Calendly and Picktime to arrange a meeting with the target. Although the initial steps were…