Blackhat Training is almost here!

I am gearing up for the Blackhat Training session on Monday-Tuesday of next week. We have made room for 30 students. We spent almost four weeks working on materials, remastering the demo and recap videos, and collecting malware samples that illustrated each of the subjects we are presenting. The task was alot harder than I originally expected, especially the collection of malware. I discovered a great trick using our feed processor, which is the clever use of search terms against strings to locate malware that were using specific techniques, keylogging methods, hooking styles, even specific languages. We have a solid methodology we teach behind our Responder product, so I had to find malware that illustrated specific concepts, as opposed to tailoring a training around whatever malware happened to be available. I will try to keep the training as high level as I can, and stay out of disassembly code as much as possible, but as expected there are some key reversing skills that can never be avoided, such as the reconstruction of parameters passed to a call. But, as for arithmetic and hard logic reconstruction, the only exercise where we get into that level of detail will be the one on crypto and stego. We have one coding exercise using the new built-in scripting interface, so thats a short bit of hardcore fun as well. But most of the material is about getting reverse engineering done rapidly, getting what you need, and not bogging down - which is the name of the game.

Reverse engineering process-injecting malware

I posted a video demonstrating some RE work with Responder:

Process Injecting Malware

The RE process starts by searching a livebin's symbols for "remote". A livebin is the in-memory version of an EXE as extracted by Responder. It’s not an executable format, but instead represents the exact layout of the PE formatted file once it loads into virtual memory. Section information does not need to be interpreted to remap the binary in this case, as the OS loader has already done that, including remapping and any other modifications that are made to the layout of code and data at runtime. Many malware programs will be packed on disk, but the livebin will contain large unpacked sections that can be analyzed without the RE having to know anything about the packing methods used, as in effect they are already unpacked for you.

The symbol "CreateRemoteThread" is of interest. For process injection malware you will find this API call almost 100% of the time. There are a few other API calls that are used in conjunction. We drag the symbol to the canvas and examine the region around it. Specifically, we see WriteProcessMemory and VirtualAllocEx - this is a dead giveaway that process injection is in use. Usually a malware will inject a thread that points to the function "LoadLibrary" with the first argument being a path to a DLL that was decompressed to disk - typically in a temporary directory. This is part of the malware's installation system.

In the example, we find that a PID is used to locate a process to inject into. We follow this PID and find the argument is used with LEA. In this case, the LEA is like using the address-of operator in 'c' code.

Imagine the following code:
void *myFunctionPointer;
some_function_call( &myFunctionPointer );


The "some_function_call" is getting a reference to myFunctionPointer, and this means it has the ability to initialize or assign a value into myFunctionPointer. The LEA instruction you see in the video is the assembly version of this same operation. We see this, and follow the function to find a loop where ToolHelpSnapshot32 is used. The toolhelp API set is another very suspicious behavior - if you see this in a potential malware you are very likely dealing with something that enumerates other processes on the system. This is usually a step prior to injection (or an attempt to find a virus scanner or firewall exe and kill it).

There is a string comparison in the process hunting loop - so the malware author is attempting to find a process by name. We follow the arguments back up and see that it's searching for "explorer.exe". The steps shown in the video require moderate-level RE skills, but are not daunting. With a little practice you can follow arguments in and out of function calls without losing your place. The trick is simply to remember that arguments are usually a positive base off of EBP, and local variables are a negative offset. "Parameters are Positive" - use that rule to remember.

The is one exception that is likely to drive you crazy - malware written in Delphi (and there is ALOT of that) usually passes parameters in registers. This can be harder to follow, but again if you label the arguments going into the function you can see these labels at the function boundaries so you don't lose your place.

There are no isolated networks anymore

Highly specialized networks, such as those that control power grids, or esoteric equipment, such as MRI scanners, are not typically considered at risk from Internet attacks. Yet, the recent conficker worm was able to infect these things. It is important to understand that just because hardware seems specialized and distant, it can still be connected to a TCP/IP network. Even if the equipment doesn't offer a convenient web-addressable interface to hack, it can still have a protocol and perform I/O.

Almost all modern but specialized equipment has embedded TCP/IP capabilities and the associated ethernet jack. Web and TCP/IP based technology is a good choice for machine interfacing and configuration. Browsers eliminate the need for specialized client software. Non-specialized programmers can write code that works with a HTTP or HTTPS interface to provide remote configuration capability - this equals lower software development costs.

Specialized equipment often contains a remote data terminal (RDT) which is like an embedded board that contains a mini-OS, likely based on a linux variant or even something like VXWorks. Newly emerging technology, like System on a Chip (SoC) is both inexpensive, and easy to interface to. Even when an RDT type function is not available, these devices may stream large volumes of data outbound over TCP/IP, with the port intended to be used in a specialized LAN configuration for image capturing or other functions (think medical equipment like MRI scanners or X-Ray machines that are interfacing to the PACS network).

The overall point is that these machines are connected to a network that talks TCP/IP. And, following the very nature of TCP/IP, it's easy to make connections that are unintended. So, even though the MRI scanner is not supposed to be connected to the Internet, the imaging workstation will need to talk with the database in Radiology which is then connected to the Hospital Information System (HIS), which is connected to the Internet. You now have an MRI scanner that is attached to machines that can browse the Internet. This is how Conficker got into Heart Monitors running an old unpatched Win2K systems.

Even old equipment falls prey to these unintended exploit paths. Especially for older SCADA equipment, there are tons of devices that will interface good old serial ports to ethernet and TCP/IP pathways. To lower costs, SCADA networks have been refitted with remote access that is routable over ethernet and TCP/IP. The protocols are old and weird, but anyone who does their research can attack them. Even when not directly connected to the Internet (and yes, sometimes they are), devices like power relays are just a few hops away from the Internet-facing gateway. These devices really do control power for small northeastern towns in the dead of winter.

A large amount of the risk here is simply that specialized networks are connected to the Internet via unintended means. These unintended connections between the so-called “protected” networks, and the totally unpatched open equipment is something like a void. It’s not well audited. In some cases, the IT staff may even be discouraged from auditing. In one factory a few years back, the IT staff were forbidden from even running port scans to inventory the network. Apparently doing so once crashed a SCADA controlled machine on the factory floor, so management had forbidden the practice hence. To make things worse, it's incredibly easy to bridge networks without thinking about the security implications. An end user can co-fuse two networks just by plugging in a cable incorrectly. A network admin may not have an extra switch so they use the existing one out of convenience. There are countless scenarios where it's easier to think of specialized systems as non-internet devices, thus not a problem for security.

When dealing with network security, you should always think of every networked device as containing an operating system. It would not harm your security to even think of them as embedded windows operating systems that are vulnerable to conficker worms. You should never think of them as non-internet devices.

Ongoing SCADA Attacks and Network Probes

Consistent and ongoing recon-probes continue to be launched into the US Infrastructure, including government and municipal systems. Boldly stated, all large Enterprises (government and corporate alike) are compromised by some form of malware that is CURRENTLY under C&C from a remote attacker. Malware infections are the tip of the spear - at the other end of an active malware C&C network is a human being or organization with intent and funding.

Recon-probes are malware implants that only scan ports and inventory the resources in the network, then phone home with the data. In many cases, probes are not targeted (not aimed only at your network, but rather like a shotgun approach) - there is an ongoing effort to simply map everything that sits behind the public gateways. In particular, probes have been launched into the US Infrastructure SCADA networks - think power grids and water plants.

Probes will be less complex than a full-blown botnet agent. One component to be on the lookout for is a TCP/IP-only capability - not something that injects into IE or Explorer, but rather a cleaner implant with a port scanning and sniffing capability. These probes will have a C&C backchannel of some kind, but are likely to store their information on disk for a while, as they don't phone home very often. These are forward probes designed to map your network. They may even query the hard-drive serial number via IOCTL's to the NTFS driver, this is for node identification decoupled from the IP address of the host. There will also be a query to see if the box has multiple interfaces.

If you find a probe operation, immediately assume that secondary attack tools have been brought into the network, perhaps in select subnets or on critical gateway machines. Be especially attentive to any sniffing capability on a collision domain near a gateway, or even on the gateway itself. In some cases, secondary capabilities have been dropped that have the ability to shutdown and destroy the computer. If you have captured a probe, immediately check all embedded registry keys and file paths for potential storage locations for secondary equipment.

Rich and Greg in Va. – Ghillie Suits, AR-15’s, Russian Ammunition and Chinese Malware

The morning was spent discussing how lame Conficker.C turned out to be and how it was most likely just barrage jam… meaning a smoke screen diversion to throw off the scent for the “real” slow and low pdf attacks that were slipping into financial institutions in droves. Then on Friday morning HBGary was lucky enough to receive a nice excel spear phishing attack. Unlike most companies we love this stuff. This gives us something to do over the weekend. Greg and I also discussed our new global services offerings which will soon appear on our web site.

After breakfast Greg and I went to an undisclosed location in the Northern Virginia area, got suited up with Ghillie-Suits, AR-15’s, and a 1000 rounds of Wolf Performance Ammunition from Russia. Our mission was to get from point A to point B without getting caught by numerous “individuals”. If we weren’t caught and we made it to point B, we were then to shoot the 500 rounds each at targets from 25 yards up to 100 yards. We had up to 4 hours to cover the terrain, get to Point B, shoot our rounds and get back to point A. without getting caught; again the main point was not getting caught. It was a great! We covered a crazy amount of territory in a short period of time climbing through all kinds of thick brush and most of it was straight up hill to reach point B. At one point we we’re within 50 yards of some of the “individuals” but remained completely still and since we were in our Ghillie-Suits we remained completely still and remained undetected, just like a good rootkit. ;) We ultimately made it to Point B., where we celebrated by drinking some water and dropping our packs to load our rifles. We target practice with Russian ammunition because it’s cheap, pretty reliable and readily available.

As the sun was setting, we had already infected a VM with one of the recent boobytrapped PDF documents. Using a snapshot and Flypaper, we extracted several binaries with Responder and discovered a running botnet out of Russia. The PDF document immediately grabs a malware loader executable from a hacked chinese website, including a flash module. Once the loader executes, the main loader contacts a bot controller located in the ukraine, and the subsequent payload that is downloaded loads a kernel mode rootkit and a usermode module that communicates with a single drop point - a single commercial hacked website to store a drop point, and from this scripted location, data being emailed to a completely different and single hacked email account. The bot control software is something called "JRoger BManager v1.5" and in this case, was operated from a Russian language asset. We made heavy use of NetWitness Informer to capture C&C traffic and compressed downloads of infection modules. We are now tracking this threat to learn more.

Here are some pics:

The Bot Controller

Responder graph of the usermode portion of the malware

NetWitness really boils off the fat. You can slice and dice the data from a packet capture in so many ways. Here are shots:

Overall a good day.

The Sky is Falling, When it Rains

We have come to distrust any doomsaying in the security industry. We can't identify an authoritative and impartial entity that can stand back and really make an assessment of risk. Claims about the cyber threat level resemble the Orange Threat Level at the airport - a distant flag of color, washed out behind the gate call and the long line at Starbucks. To an outsider, the latest threat reports published by security companies seem to be coat tailing on Conficker - a recycling furnace of self-fulfilling prophecy, the press thermometer following along, ticking up to the final doomsday hour when conficker went... fizzle pop. Conficker a bust. Move on, this is not the threat you're looking for.

From y2k to Al Qaeda threats on the Capital, the lack of materialization can lead us beyond healthy skepticism to a place where we conceptually disenfranchise threat intelligence as a whole. This is where we have to be careful and step softly in those dark woods beyond the campfire. Just because conficker didn't blow up the Internet does not mean it couldn't. If anything, conficker brought a lot of press attention to the problem of malware, and that is a Good Thing. When tens of millions of computers remained infected with a variant of conficker on April 1st and still today, we all need to understand that someone somewhere could have lit the flash powder. Conficker is old news. New variants of malware are released daily. In one discussion I heard upwards of fifty thousand new variants per 24 hour period (think autopacking on deployment). If conficker is truly controlled by the Russian Mafia, then blowing up the Internet serves no purpose for the their bottom line. Silent ongoing presence is what steals intellectual property and banking credentials; not DDOS, not software vulnerabilities that amount to sexed up access violations. Real attacks are about reliable access to money and information. The security industry can sometimes get caught up in stuff that really doesn't matter that much, while ignoring the threat that is right there, in front of your face, in your computer right now.

Malware commonly hunts down and kills anti-virus programs

Much of the malware we are processing has the ability to locate and kill anti-virus programs and desktop firewalls. The following malware example illustrates the behavior clearly. There are long strands of code that query through a list of known security software process-names and subsequently sabotage them.

Click for larger image

The means by which the malware detects the security software is by process name. There are long lists of process names that appear in sequence, these nodes are shown on the graphic as label 'A'. Almost all variants of this behavior are similar in structure, even though they are employed across many different and unrelated malware strains.

update:
I took the time to zoom in on one single operation (marked as B. in the following image) from the strand of control flow shown above. The strand shown above contains hundreds of these.



And, here is the disassembly for one operation:

10001A98 BB 5C 65 00 10 mov ebx,0x1000655C // webtrap.exe
10001A9D 53 push ebx
10001A9E E8 C3 25 00 00 call 0x10004066▼ // __imp_MSVCRT.dll!strlen
10001AA0 ASCII: %
10001AA0 : 25 00 %.
10001AA0 : 25 00 00 %..
10001AA3 loc_10001AA3:
10001AA3 59 pop ecx
10001AA4 50 push eax
10001AA5 53 push ebx
10001AA6 8D 4D F0 lea ecx,[ebp-0x10]
//__imp_MSVCP60.dll!?assign@?$basic_string@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@@std@@QAEAAV12
10001AA9 FF 15 8C 50 00 10 call dword ptr [0x1000508C]
10001AAF loc_10001AAF:
10001AAF 8D 45 F0 lea eax,[ebp-0x10]
10001AB2 8D 4D DC lea ecx,[ebp-0x24]
10001AB5 50 push eax
10001AB6 FF 75 E4 push dword ptr [ebp-0x1C]
10001AB9 E8 BB 22 00 00 call 0x10003D79▼ // sub_10003D79
10001ABE loc_10001ABE:
10001ABE 57 push edi
10001ABF 8D 4D F0 lea ecx,[ebp-0x10]
// __imp_MSVCP60.dll!?_Tidy@?$basic_string@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@@std@@AAEX_N@Z
10001AC2 FF 15 90 50 00 10 call dword ptr [0x10005090]
10001AC8 loc_10001AC8:
10001AC8 8A 45 0B mov al,byte ptr [ebp+0xB]
10001ACB 56 push esi
10001ACC 8D 4D F0 lea ecx,[ebp-0x10]
10001ACF 88 45 F0 mov byte ptr [ebp-0x10],al
// __imp_MSVCP60.dll!?_Tidy@?$basic_string@DU?$char_traits@D@std@@V?$allocator@D@2@@std@@AAEX_N@Z
10001AD2 FF 15 90 50 00 10 call dword ptr [0x10005090]

What is interesting is that the list of malware to kill is commonly cut and paste around, but the methods used to parse it can vary based on which malware author is developing it. In this instance, the malware author uses the standard template library. This is a good fingerprint that can be used to find other variants of this particular author's work. Data like this can be used as an attribution factor.