Oleksyk applied-anti-forensics
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The document discusses exploiting vulnerabilities in the Windows registry and kernel to execute malicious code without detection. It describes how vulnerabilities in functions like RtlQueryRegistryValues and win32k.sys that improperly read registry values can be triggered to cause a buffer overflow and gain kernel code execution. The goal is to store malicious code in the registry and have it execute by exploiting these vulnerabilities during system startup before detection can occur.
Oleksyk applied-anti-forensics
- 1. Oleksiuk Dmytro (aka Cr4sh)
- 2. What do you think when you hear this term?
- 3. What do you think when you hear this term? Rustock TDSS/Alureon ZeroAccess Carberp
- 4. What do you think when you hear this term? Rustock TDSS/Alureon ZeroAccess Carberp My talk about another: rootkits for the target attacks
- 5. The purpose of malicious code puts certain requirements over it In general, the requirements are persistence and activity hiding, but also there is some special cases Case #1: rootkits for the mass-spreading malware Prevent active infection curing by the popular anti-virus software Case #2: rootkits for the target attacks Prevent active infection detection even by the professional during forensic analysis The main subject of this talk
- 6. Specific requirements dictate the necessity of the specific technical solutions All rootkits listed above in the case #1 and all known «cyber-weapon» stuff are very easy detectable We need to design something fundamentally new that will be good enough for the case #2 But first - let's look at the common rootkit detection scenarios for better understanding of the task
- 7. In order to be working the malicious code must get execution somehow System service installation or using of the less obvious auto-run capabilities (documented or not) of OS ▪ TDL 2, Rustock, Srizbi, Stuxnet, Duqu Infection of the existing executable file ▪ TDL 3, ZeroAccess, Virut OS booting control (modification of the boot code, partition table or playing with the UEFI boot drivers and services) ▪ TDL 4, Mebroot, Olmarik, Rovnix, UEFI rootkit by @snare
- 8. Apart from getting the execution rootkits also have to hide the evidences of their work (we're still talking about rootkits?) Hidden objects and resources of the operating system make the rootkit detection more easy How exactly?
- 9. Step 1: collect the database (like name/path + hash) of interesting resources (files, system registry, boot sectors) inside the environment of presumably infected by rootkit OS Step 2: collect the same database but with the mounting of the target OS system volume inside the environment of clear and trusted OS Step 3: diff of the two databases will show us the resources that were hidden or locked by the rootkit inside the environment of the target OS Reliability is close to 100% in the absence of implementation errors Very hard for to bypass such detection I'm using this method successfully in the different practical cases
- 10. Rootkit sample: Trojan.Srizbi.cx
- 11. Rootkit sample: Win32.TDSS.aa
- 12. Rootkit sample: Rootkit.Win32.Agent.aibm
- 13. The malicious code also can have nothing to hide (because not only rootkits are useful) Developers can masquerade the malicious module as a legitimate program component (from OS or 3-rd party software) Actually, such case is much more harder for investigation and detection than “true rootkit”, that hides any files/processes/registry keys/etc. But we still can compare collected resources database with the some reference Good system administrator always knows, exactly what software and drivers are installed on his servers and workstations. Find something extraneous among known components and data is a much than possible
- 14. So, for these reasons our ideal rootkit for target attacks is strictly prohibited to use: All the regular ways of auto-run Existing files modification and new files creation Interfere in the process of OS booting with the modification of MBR, VBR, NTFS $Boot and so on. But where should we store the malicious code and how to pass execution into it? Maybe, firmware infection is the most obvious way? Yes: that’s a powerful technology and it can solve our tasks No: in practice – very expensive, depends on the specific hardware and have a lot of other limitations
- 15. Let’s store malicious code inside some REG_BINARY or REG_SZ system registry value!
- 16. The main goal: Windows system registry – is the millions of keys and values There is no any complete documentation on all of these Usually, the forensic analysis is limited by checking only a small part of registry keys (that stores critical system settings and known auto-run locations) The main problem: how to execute a code, that located inside a system registry value? Of course, the Windows haven’t any regular capabilities for that But some registry keys can contain the data that very interesting and sensitive itself Also, there are a lot of code and program components that read something from the system registry, and, of course, such code can have vulnerabilities
- 17. What interesting is kept in the system registry? Settings, users password hashes, certificates and secret/public keys Maybe, anything else?
- 18. Windows ACPI driver stores a copy of the DSDT table (that was read from the firmware) inside a system registry sometimes this feature is used by enthusiasts to fix the hardware vendor bugs DSDT – is the part of ACPI specification, this table stores machine- independent subprograms, that are interpreting by ACPI driver in the occurrence of different power events ACPI spec 4.0a, «5.2 ACPI System Description Tables» DSDT had already got under the attention of researchers «Implementing and Detecting an ACPI BIOS Rootkit» (John Heasman, Black Hat 2006) I propose to modify the copy of DSDT inside the system registry, but not inside the firmware
- 19. DSDT can contain data objects and control methods They forming a hierarchical ACPI namespace Control methods are represented in the form of an AML byte- code (ACPI Machine Language), in which compiles the programs written in ASL (ACPI Source Language) Compilers and disassemblers are available in toolkits from Intel and Microsoft It’s possible to browse ACPI namespace and debug the AML code with the acpikd extension for WinDbg AML byte-code interpreter located inside the operating system ACPI driver (ACPI.sys on Windows)
- 20. ASL provides a lot of capabilities for working with the hardware resources OperationRegion directive (ACPI spec 4.0a, «18.5.89 Declare Operation Region») can give the access to the different memory regions
- 21. Example: ASL code that writes 0x1337 into the physical memory at 0x80000000
- 22. Write ASL program, that generates the malicious machine code directly into the physical memory, and then – patches OS kernel for redirecting control flow to the generated code Read DSDT contents from the system registry Add written program into the code of some control method, that will be called during OS startup Write modified DSDT back into the system registry PROFFIT! At the next reboot modified control method code will be interpreted by ACPI driver and after that – our malicious code will be generated and executed
- 23. ASL code can work only with the physical memory, so, for accessing to the virtual memory we need to make the address translation manually Windows stores PDE/PTE tables at the constant virtual addresses 0xC0300000/0xC0000000 (for x86) Then we should find the address of the some kernel mode code to patch, the using of hardcoded address is possible Will work on NT 5.x Will not work NT 6.x because there is a kernel-mode ASLR … but it’s better to modify the code, that located in the SystemCallPad field of the _KUSER_SHARED_DATA structure This structure located at the executable memory page with the constant address 0xffdf0000 (at least – up to NT 6.1 including) The end of this page can be used to store the malicious code
- 25. Unfortunately, considered DSDT modification works fine only on the NT 5.x and gives the strange BSoD on the NT 6.x:
- 26. The reason – KeBugCheckEx call inside the ACPI.sys
- 27. ACPI!MapPhysMem calls the AmlpValidateFirmwareMemoryAddress function, that checks the physical address from the OperationRegion for belonging to the I/O ports addresses ranges If the control method code trying to read or write something different (executable images that mapped to the memory, kernel structures and so on) – ACPI.sys drops the system into the BSoD ACPI.sys reads the information about the allowed memory regions from the special keys of the system registry, that located in HARDWAREDESCRIPTIONSystemMultifunctionAdapter This key is not a permanent – it’s creating during the operating system startup PnP driver puts I/O memory information inside it during the hardware resources enumeration and initialization
- 28. Well… we can try to put fake I/O memory information into the system registry and corrupt the hive binary structure somehow to prevent the system to modify data Also, the possible way is exploring the other ACPI features Already done by Alex Ionescu: «ACPI 5.0 Rootkit Attacks Against Windows 8» One more variant: to find the vulnerability in the AML byte-code interpreter code But stop, out primary task – is executing of the code, that is located inside the system registry. Let’s leave ACPI and find some different way
- 29. Do you remember the local privileges escalation vulnerability CVE-2010-4398 (MS11-010)? The another one vulnerability in the win32k.sys Incorrect usage of the RtlQueryRegistryValues kernel function causes stack-based buffer overflow during reading the registry value contents Because the RtlQueryRegistryValues – is really overcomplicated Seems that even the Windows developers don’t know all the documented features of the some kernel functions
- 30. The RtlQueryRegistryValues has a lot of options and different data reading modes The most interesting stuff located in the RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_TABLE structure, that must be passed to the RtlQueryRegistryValues as an argument
- 31. The Flags field can contain the RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT flag: The MSDN quote about this flag: «The QueryRoutine member is not used (and must be NULL), and the EntryContext points to the buffer to store the value» From the type of the value, that you’re reading, depends on how exactly the data will be written into the buffer REG_SZ, REG_EXPAND_SZ: «EntryContext must point to an initialized UNICODE_STRING structure» Non-string data with size <=sizeof(ULONG): «The value is stored in the memory location specified by EntryContext» Non-string data with size >sizeof(ULONG): «The buffer pointed to by EntryContext must begin with a signed LONG value. The magnitude of the value must specify the size, in bytes, of the buffer»
- 32. The usage of the RtlQueryRegistryValues causes the BoF when: The code is trying to read REG_DWORD or REG_SZ value with the RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT flag but without the correct type value in the DefaultType field … and buffer, that pointed by the EntryContext field, has a non-zero DWORD at the beginning (for example – when the EntryContext points to the initialized UNICODE_STRING structure) … and attacker can replace the reading value (REG_DWORD or REG_SZ) by malicious one, that has a REG_BINARY type Result –100% controllable overflow with the trivial exploitation! Number of overwritten bytes – is the first DWORD value from the EntryContext pointed buffer
- 33. Simple PoC for the CVE-2010-4398 as a .REG file:
- 34. The vulnerable code fragment in win32k.sys:
- 35. Of course, Microsoft has released a path for the CVE-2011-4398 That patch also adds some improvements and mitigations for the RtlQueryRegistryValues function: The RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_TYPECHECK flag has been added, if it is specified – the RtlQueryRegistryValues will return an error in case of the zero DefaultType field In Windows 8 the RTL_QUERY_REGISTRY_DIRECT flag works only for the trusted registry keys (that can’t be overwritten under limited user account) But these improvements will not make the already written code more secure On Windows 7 we still have a good LPE vector … and local-admin-to-ring0 on Windows 8
- 36. Even reverse engineering of the vulnerabilities that were already fixed can give you a valuable experience As a result of the patched vulnerabilities discovery it’s possible to obtain a new attack vector and a "template" of the vulnerable code, that can be used to find new zero-day vulnerabilities Let’s try to find zero-day vulnerabilities that are similar to the CVE-2010-4398
- 37. Fuzzing? Static dataflow analysis? Symbolic execution?
- 38. Fuzzing? Static dataflow analysis? Symbolic execution? Keep it simple. IDA, win32k.sys and one hour of the time!
- 39. Some interesting piece of code in win32k.sys:
- 40. The win32!bInitializeEUDC function unsafely reading the «FontLink» value (REG_DWORD) of the «SoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersion» key No DefaultType specified, EntryContext pointed buffer – is uninitialized stack variable with the non-zero value We can trigger the vulnerability by replacing these values with the REG_BINARY one
- 41. Yes, it drops a system into the BSoD and we can control the EIP value
- 42. Vulnerable function takes the execution from the NtUserInitialize system call handler. Windows kernel is using this system call for the per-session initialization of the Win32 subsystem So, the vulnerability can be triggered during the system boot, all that we need – is just put the malicious value into the system registry
- 43. There is a DEP and ASLR in the NT 6.x kernels, and we need to bypass them absolutely blindly without any pre-interaction with the OS Good thing – there is no stack cookies in win32!bInitializeEUDC Exploit should not violate the normal execution flow and global state of the OS kernel, if it will – BSoD and unbootable OS Need to restore overwritten stack frames and correctly pass the execution from the shellcode back to the win32k.sys Overflow happens too close to the bottom of the stack, we have only about 70 bytes for the shellcode It’s not possible to do the spray or something, because we can’t interact with the OS at the exploitation stage, all that we have – is the data that overwrites the stack
- 44. A little fail: I haven’t got the ROP chain with the short enough length for DEP/ASLR bypass inside the Windows kernel environment (and it seems that nobody has) The shortest what I know – has a 68 bytes length without the shellcode See the «Bypassing Windows 7 kernel ASLR» by Stéfan LE BERRE Compromise solution – to disable the DEP inside the Windows boot loader configuration … and enable it for the user-mode processes back when the shellcode has been successfully executed There is no way to disable ASLR But it seems that it’s not a very critical for the vulnerability that I’m talking about
- 45. I’m using the JMP ESP that is located at the constant address inside the KUSER_SHARED_DATA for defeating the kernel ASLR 70 bytes is a pretty enough for the egg-hunting stage 1 shellcode, that locates and executes stage 2 shellcode in the kernel-space virtual memory by the binary signature lookup Stage 2 shellcode is originally located inside some another registry value – Windows kernel maps the big parts of the registry hives in the virtual memory Also, in stage 1 shellcode I’m finding an address of the MmIsAddressValid kernel function Stage 1 shellcode is obtaining the kernel image base from the _KPCR structure (we can access it via FS segment register)
- 46. Whole stage 1 assembly code:
- 47. For the OS code execution state normalization the stage 2 shellcode must perform some operations, that weren’t executed in the win32k.sys code because of the buffer overflow It sets the WIN32_PROCESS_FLAGS flag inside the Win32 Process Information structure (W32PROCESS) for the current process It finds the address of the non-exportable function win32k!UserInitialize and calls it manually Then, the stage 2 shellcode loads, initializes and runs the ring 0 payload After that, the stage 2 shellcode sets the return address and ESP values in order to return the execution of the current system call back to the system calls manager (nt!_KiFastCallEntry) with the STATUS_SUCCESS return value
- 48. Regular Windows kernel mode driver PE image Is also stored inside the system registry value It hides itself from the modern anti-rootkits In order to avoid unknown executable code detection it moves itself in the memory over discardable sections of some default Windows drivers It installs the kernel mode network backdoor Undetectable NDIS miniport level hooks allows to monitor the incoming network traffic on all of the interfaces When network backdoor finds the magic sequence in the traffic – it injects meterpreter/bind_tcp payload (from the Metasploit framework) for execution into the WINLOGON.EXE user mode process
- 50. Check out the rootkit source code on GitHub! github.com/Cr4sh/WindowsRegistryRootkit
- 51. I’m not reported about these win32k.sys vulnerability into the Microsoft Not very critical vulnerability because of the strange practical use-cases Vulnerable systems – all the NT 6.x (up to the Windows 8), for x86 and x64 Seems that stable exploitation of vulnerability in the win32!bInitializeEUDC function is impossible on the x64 Windows version The win32k!bInitializeEUDC function have the stack cookies on Windows x64 because of the stack frames elimination Impossible to exploit such cases completely blindly, without the pre- interaction with the OS