From Infostealer to Full RAT: Inside the 2025 PureRAT Attack Chain
In October 2025, Huntress Labs analyzed a sophisticated attack campaign leveraging the PureRAT remote access trojan. The intrusion began with a targeted phishing email containing a ZIP archive that employed DLL sideloading to launch a cascade of in-memory loaders written in Python. Progressing through multi-layered obfuscation, hybrid encryption, and system persistence via Windows registry modifications, the attackers ultimately deployed PureRAT, granting full remote control over victim endpoints. Notably, the operation combined custom-developed loaders with commercial malware, demonstrating advanced evasion and command and control techniques, including encrypted communications and dynamic payload delivery. This incident highlights the growing complexity and modularity of post-phishing attack chains. Organizations must remain vigilant as threat actors increasingly blend bespoke scripts with off-the-shelf RATs, drastically lowering the barrier for stealthy, persistent intrusions targeting credential theft and long-term access.
Kill Chain