FAKE OSINT AND GPT UTILITY GITHUB REPOS SPREAD PYSTORERAT MALWARE PAYLOADS

Summary from the TLDR InfoSec newsletter

A campaign attributed to likely Eastern European threat actors is distributing PyStoreRAT malware through GitHub repositories disguised as OSINT tools, GPT wrappers, and DeFi bots, using artificially inflated star counts and social media promotion to build credibility. The modular JavaScript-based RAT executes via mshta.exe, scans for cryptocurrency wallets, evades detection by CrowdStrike and Cybereason, and delivers the Rhadamanthys infostealer as a secondary payload. Security teams should audit dependencies from trending GitHub repositories, monitor for scheduled tasks masquerading as NVIDIA updates, and deploy endpoint detection and response solutions capable of identifying mshta.exe activity and JavaScript-based payloads to strengthen defenses against PyStoreRAT.