Microsoft warns of RAT delivered through trojanized gaming utilities
February 28, 2026 
Attackers spread trojanized gaming tools to deliver a stealthy RAT using PowerShell, LOLBins, and Defender evasion tactics.
Threat actors are tricking users into running trojanized gaming utilities shared through browsers and chat platforms to deploy a remote access trojan.
“Microsoft Defender researchers uncovered a campaign that lured users into running trojanized gaming utilities (Xeno.exe or RobloxPlayerBeta.exe) distributed through browsers and chat platforms, leading to the deployment of a remote access trojan (RAT).” Microsoft Threat Intelligence team wrote on X.
A malicious downloader deployed a portable Java runtime to run a harmful JAR file, using PowerShell and LOLBins like cmstp.exe for stealth. It deleted itself, added Microsoft Defender exclusions, and set up persistence via a scheduled task and startup script. The final payload was a multi-purpose malware acting as a loader, downloader, runner, and remote access trojan.
“Finally, it deployed the final payload, a multi-purpose malware that acted as loader, runner, downloader, and RAT.” concludes Microsoft.
“The RAT connected to the IP address 79.110.49[.]15 for command and control (C2), enabling threat actors to perform various actions like data theft and additional payload deployment.”
Microsoft also published indicators of compromise (IoCs) for this campaign.
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Pierluigi Paganini
(SecurityAffairs – hacking, RAT)
