Carp Downloader

Carp Downloader is a Trojan downloader that first emerged in 2017 when it was used in combination with the Cardinal RAT. The former was found on the breached systems of Israeli companies operating in the financial field, and soon cybersecurity experts made the connection between the Carp Downloader and the Cardinal RAT. The campaign that took place in 2017 relied on fake email attachments to deliver bogus documents to the targets of the hackers. The ill-minded crafted documents contained a macro script that exploited an old Microsoft Office vulnerability that could be used to craft and deploy payloads to compromised hosts.

While the Cardinal RAT does not need the Carp Downloader to be installed, cybersecurity experts are yet to detect samples of the RAT that were not delivered via the Carp Downloader. The majority of Carp Downloader's targets were approached via cleverly crafted email messages that pretend to contain an important document that must be reviewed immediately – a typical trick that many cybercriminals use to draw the attention of their targets.

The Carp Downloader may be recognized by several anti-virus products, and you can rest assured that you are protected from it if you use an up-to-date anti-malware application.