What Is a Remote Access Trojan (RAT), and Why Should You Care?
According to our 2025 State of the Underground report—in which we take a look back at cybercrime on the deep and dark web from the past year—384 unique varieties of malware were sold in 2024, an increase from 349 in 2023. To determine this number, our research team examined malware and hacking tools for sale on the top three criminal forums, and as a result, we found that Remote Access Trojans (RATs) were the second most common form of malware in 2024, just behind stealer malware.