A family of four new remote access trojans (RATs) operated by the STD Group has been identified, leveraging Discord as their command and control (C2) channel. These RATs—Minecraft RAT, UwUdisRAT, STD RAT, and Propionanilide RAT—are written in C++ and use a ROT23 cipher to obfuscate Discord bot tokens for C2 communication. The malware has evolved from single payloads to using packers, complicating detection efforts. The RATs enable attackers to perform reconnaissance, execute commands, and maintain persistence on infected systems. Detection is supported by YARA rules and file indicators provided in the analysis. While no known exploits in the wild have been reported yet, the use of Discord for C2 is notable for evading traditional network defenses. European organizations, especially those with high Discord usage or gaming-related sectors, could be targeted. Mitigation requires enhanced monitoring of Discord traffic, endpoint detection tuned for these RAT behaviors, and restricting unauthorized Discord bot usage within corporate environments.
