Beginner Guide to Remote Administration Tools
What is a RAT?
Well to start off, The term RAT is short for Remote Administration Tool.
A quick definition of a RAT (Remote Administration Tool): RAT'S are used to connect and manage a single or multiple computers with a variety of tools, such as:
Screen/camera capture or control
File management (download/upload/execute/etc.)
Shell control (usually piped from command prompt)
Computer control (power off/on/log off)
Registry management (query/add/delete/modify)
Other product-specific function
Direct Connection
A direct-connect RAT is a simple setup where the client connects to a single or multiple servers directly. Stable servers are multi-threaded, allowing for multiple clients to be connected, along with increased reliability.
Reverse Connection
RATs that utilize reverse connection have a few major advantages, such as the ones listed below:
Outgoing connections generally are less treating, and are less likely to be detected or blocked by a firewall, such as a router.
Since the remote's computer is connecting to the remote administrator, he or she will not need to know the remote's IP address in order to connect.
The remote administrator does not need to know to which or how many computers the RAT is being installed on, which allows for mass-distribution.
If mass-distributed, it is much easier to keep track of the computers the RAT is installed on, since they are all "calling home" by connecting to the remote administrator.
Are RATS Legal/Illegal?
Well, It is actually both. There are RATS that are Legal and that are actually Illegal. The difference between them both are the fact that, Legal RATS inform the connected remote that you are on the computer, And Illegal RATS do NOT inform the remote that you are on the computer.
So basically to break things down.
Legal means the person has full control as well, They can kill the connection any time they please, No backdoor is left on their PC, And it is in your network.
Illegal means the person does NOT know you are connected and they have no knowledge you are till you take action, They have no control to kill the connection (unless they unplug the internet), But even then, A backdoor is left on the computer meaning anytime the computer is on and the internet is up, You can connect anytime you want. You can destroy files, Download files, Steal information, Basically make their life miserable.
Some legal RATS are:
Teamviewer - TeamViewer establishes connections to any PC or server all around the world within just a few seconds.
Ammyy Admin - Ammyy Admin is a highly reliable and very friendly tool for remote computer access.
Mikogo - Mikogo is an easy-to-use cross-platform desktop sharing tool, ideal for web conferencing, online meetings or remote support.
Ultra VNC - UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen.
Port Forwarding
We can start by calling it Port Forwarding, but it is also known as Port Mapping.
There are a couple of concepts you need to know before you can understand port forwarding. I'm going to make a couple broad statements that are almost always true. For simplicity lets assume they are true for now.
1.) Every device on the internet has at least one ip address. The IP address is a number that is used to identify a device. For more information on ip addresses
refer to our What is an IP Address page.
2.) Every IP address
is divided up into many ports. When one computer sends data to another computer, it sends it from a port on an ip address to a port on an ip address. For more information on ports refer to our What is a Port page.
3.) A port can only be used by one program at a time.
