MALWARE ANALYSIS • RUST-BASED THREAT

NETWORK BREACH: The New Rust-Based ChaosBot is Stealing Your VPN Credentials to Execute Remote Commands

By CyberDudeBivash • October 11, 2025 • V7 “Goliath” Deep Dive

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Definitive Guide: Table of Contents

Part 1: The Executive Briefing — The Remote Workforce is the New Perimeter

A new and highly sophisticated information stealer, which we have dubbed **”ChaosBot,”** is at the center of a major new campaign targeting remote workers. This is not a generic password stealer; it is a surgical tool written in the modern, high-performance Rust programming language, and it has one primary target: your employees’ corporate VPN credentials. For any CISO managing a remote or hybrid workforce, this is a “stop everything” level threat. A single employee’s machine infected with ChaosBot can provide a threat actor with a fully authenticated, trusted entry point directly into your corporate network, completely bypassing your perimeter firewall.

Part 2: Technical Deep Dive — The Rise of Rust-Based Malware and the ChaosBot Kill Chain

Why Rust? The New Language of Malware

The use of Rust is a significant evolution. Attackers are adopting it because it is fast, cross-platform, and, most importantly, compiled Rust binaries are significantly harder to reverse-engineer than those written in C++ or .NET. This makes analysis by security researchers much more difficult and time-consuming.

The Kill Chain

Delivery:** The attack begins with a user searching for a legitimate open-source tool and landing on an SEO-poisoned, fake download site. They download a trojanized installer.
**Execution:** The user runs the installer, which drops and executes the ChaosBot payload.
**Credential Theft:** ChaosBot is a specialized **infostealer**. It immediately begins scanning the filesystem for the known profile and configuration directories of major enterprise VPN clients, including Palo Alto GlobalProtect, Cisco AnyConnect, and Fortinet FortiClient. It parses these files to steal the VPN gateway address, username, and any stored passwords or authentication tokens.
**Exfiltration:** The stolen credentials are exfiltrated to the attacker’s C2 server.
**The Breach:** The attacker now uses these legitimate credentials to log into your corporate VPN. They are now “inside the wire” and can begin to move laterally and deploy ransomware.

Part 3: The Defender’s Playbook — A Masterclass in Defense for Users & SOC Teams

For CISOs and IT Leaders:

The single most effective defense against this attack is to make the stolen password useless. You must **mandate phishing-resistant Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)** for your VPN. A simple push notification or SMS code is not enough. You need to use a FIDO2/WebAuthn-compliant hardware security key. Even if the attacker steals the user’s password, they cannot log in without the physical key.

The Unphishable Defense: Deploying hardware security keys is the gold standard.

Shop for FIDO2 Security Keys →

For SOC Teams: The Hunt

You must hunt for the malware’s behavior on the endpoint.

**The Golden Signal:** The most high-fidelity hunt is to look for any process *other than the VPN client itself* attempting to read the VPN’s profile directories.ProcessName NOT IN ('GlobalProtect.exe', 'vpnui.exe') AND FileRead CONTAINS ('AppData\Local\Palo Alto Networks\GlobalProtect', 'AppData\Cisco\Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client\Profile')
**Monitor VPN Logs:** Look for successful logins from anomalous geolocations or from IP addresses that do not match the expected ISP of your remote employees.

Part 4: The Strategic Takeaway — The Mandate for a Zero Trust Architecture

For CISOs, ChaosBot is a powerful case study in the failure of the traditional, perimeter-based security model. In the era of remote work, your perimeter is no longer your office firewall; it has dissolved and now extends to every employee’s home network and personal devices. Trusting a connection simply because it comes from your VPN is a critical mistake.

This reality necessitates a fundamental shift to a **Zero Trust** architecture. A Zero Trust model assumes that the network is always hostile, and it does not trust a connection *even if it comes from the VPN*. Access to every application is granted on a per-session basis, with a continuous verification of both the user’s identity and the security posture of their device. In the age of the remote workforce, Zero Trust is not just a buzzword; it is the only viable path forward.

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About the Author

CyberDudeBivash is a cybersecurity strategist with 15+ years in malware analysis, Zero Trust architecture, and incident response, advising CISOs across APAC. [Last Updated: October 11, 2025]

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