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FakeM is a Windows remote access Trojan used in espionage-oriented intrusions and notably associated with activity attributed to Scarlet Mimic. It is designed to blend command-and-control traffic into normal network activity by making communications resemble legitimate protocols, including Windows Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and HTML, and some variants use modified SSL code or RC4-encrypted channels for command-and-control. Earlier variants used a custom XOR-and-bit-rotation cipher for encrypted communications.
FakeM has been delivered through spearphishing emails carrying malicious attachments, including Microsoft Word and Excel documents exploiting CVE-2010-3333, CVE-2012-0158, and CVE-2009-3129, as well as direct executable attachments. After execution, it establishes persistence on Windows systems and provides a broad remote administration feature set. Documented capabilities include shell command execution, file and directory browsing, host information collection, process and registry access, screenshot capture, password access, file upload, and keystroke logging.
Operational reporting indicates that FakeM has likely been used by multiple threat actors rather than a single cluster, although it is strongly linked to Scarlet Mimic campaigns targeting Tibetan and Uyghur communities, minority-rights activists, journalists, NGOs, and some government entities in Asia. Its defining characteristic is network camouflage for defense evasion, allowing a comparatively simple RAT to remain effective in targeted intrusion campaigns.
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
3 CVEs Mallory has correlated with this family across public research and vendor advisories. Each row links to the full Mallory page for that vulnerability.
We found a family of RATs that we call “FAKEM” that make their network traffic look like various protocols. Some variants attempt to disguise network traffic to look like Windows® Messenger and Yahoo!® Messenger traffic.
We found a family of RATs that we call “FAKEM” that make their network traffic look like various protocols. Some variants attempt to disguise network traffic to look like Windows® Messenger and Yahoo!® Messenger traffic.
We found a family of RATs that we call “FAKEM” that make their network traffic look like various protocols. Some variants attempt to disguise network traffic to look like Windows® Messenger and Yahoo!® Messenger traffic.
1 distinct threat actor attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
The malware primarily used in this series of attacks was FakeM.
12 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Many entries describe XOR, XOR/ADD, bitwise NOT and XOR, ROR plus XOR, hexadecimal encoding after encryption, and custom encoding/obfuscation of HTTP traffic or beacons.
The attack group primarily uses well-known vulnerabilities and the “FakeM” malware family... which attempts to disguise its malicious traffic as commonly used protocols.
A cluster of Scarlet Mimic attacks used the FakeM Custom SSL variant and were deployed on C2 infrastructure that relied on free domains provided by Securepoint, a German dynamic DNS service.
The content is a catalog of malware and threat groups that encrypt command-and-control communications using algorithms such as DES, AES, RC4, XOR, Blowfish, RSA, Camellia, RC2, RC6, and custom ciphers.
"3PARA RAT command and control commands are encrypted within the HTTP C2 channel using the DES algorithm in CBC mode..."; "APT33 has used AES for encryption of command and control traffic."; "Carbanak encrypts the message body of HTTP traffic with RC2 (in CBC mode)."; "Duqu ... data stream can be encrypted with AES-CBC."; "PoisonIvy uses the Camellia cipher to encrypt communications."
11 indicators attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
IPs, domains, and DNS infrastructure linked to this family.
File hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) from samples and reports.
11 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A malware family used by Scarlet Mimic in espionage campaigns. The Custom SSL variant was delivered via malicious document attachments, connected to command-and-control infrastructure on dynamic DNS domains, and attempted to disguise malicious traffic as commonly used protocols.
Backdoor with variants using a custom XOR-and-rotation cipher or RC4 for C2 encryption.
Malware containing a keylogger module.
Malware identified as the primary malware used in the Scarlet Mimic campaign; mentioned here for contextual linkage because researchers noted infrastructure sharing with Elirks.
Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.
Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.