I am about halfway through Kevin Mitnick's new book, the Art of Intrusion, ironically i just finished a chapter where he spoke of RATs. He defined them as Remote Access Trojans, but he also lumped in any network tool, either malicious or legit as being under the RAT umbrella. He said, "programs like backorfice and terminal services are variations of RATs.

Now before I get flamed for this post, let me take the wind out of your sail and say that I do not believe everything out of ole' Kev's mouth is gold. I just thought it was ironic that I just read it.