RMM abuse surged in 2025 as ransomware groups weaponized legitimate IT tools like ScreenConnect, NetSupport, and SimpleHelp, chaining multiple agents on single hosts to survive takedowns.
Key findings:
- Adversaries deploy RMMs in layers: one documented case shows JumpCloud installing GetScreen, ScreenConnect, and SuperOps on the same host simultaneously, creating redundant footholds that survive single-agent removal (T1219)
- ScreenConnect is nearly always a second-stage payload; its C2 domain often appears directly in the ScreenConnect.Client.exe command line, making process logs one of the few places a "malicious" domain is extractable without network inspection
- NetSupport hides in C:\Users\Public\ or randomized folders; cracked copies use nonsense license strings like HANEYMANEY; network detection is reliable via User-Agent NetSupport Manager/1.3
- ITarian dropped DeerStealer and HijackLoader via sideloaded DLLs after staging through DicomPortable.exe; PDQ Connect stores its API token at C:\ProgramData\PDQ\PDQConnectAgent\token, which is the config artifact to pull in an investigation
- MSIExec breaks the process tree: follow-on malicious activity runs under SYSTEM, severing the visible link to the phishing lure
Hunt for RMM binaries in Downloads or Public folders whose metadata names a known RMM product but whose filename says Invoice.exe or Statement.msi. If you find one RMM, hunt for two more. Baseline authorized tools against lolrmm[.]io.
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