SlideShare a Scribd company logo
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
CanSecWest/core06




   Zen and the art of collecting
       and analyzing malware
                    Sascha Rommelfangen, Fred Arbogast
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Outline

     ●
          Introduction
     ●
          Setup to collect malware
     ●
          Statistics
     ●
          Analysis
     ●
          Live Demo
     ●
          Future development
           –   early warning/reacting system approaches
           –   interactive malware database
     ●
          Conclusion



                                                                                                                2
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Definition of malware

●
    Umbrella term for malicious software
●
    Not to be confused with defective software
●
    Designed to infiltrate, damage, control or abuse computer
    systems without owner's consent
●
    Legal vocabulary: computer contaminant
●
    Also used: scumware
●
    Worms, virii, root kits, spyware, adware




                         Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                              - Slide 3 -                                                                          3
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
The tools used

●
    mwcollect by Georg Wicherski
     –   (http://www.mwcollect.org)

●
    Nepenthes by nepenthes team
     –   (http://nepenthes.sourceforge.net)

●
    Focus on nepenthes as mwcollect has merged with
    nepenthes

●
    Joint effort will result in a more powerful tool



                          Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                               - Slide 4 -                                                                          4
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Things both tools have in common

●
    “Low interaction” honeypots
●
    passive
●
    catching autonomously spreading malware
●
    Running in non-native environments
●
    simulating network services
     –   mwcollect: vulnerable built-in services
     –   nepenthes: additionally 'pre-infected' services
●
    acting upon exploitation attempts
     –   Downloading malware
●
    Both tools are Free and Open Source software

                           Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                - Slide 5 -                                                                          5
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Tools - nepenthes

●
    Emulates native and non-native vulnerabilities
●
    Modular
     –   Know a new exploit, add it as a module
●
    Support for geolocation information
●
    Support for submitting malware and additional information
     –   Other instances of nepenthes (distributed installation)
     –   XML-RPC




                           Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                - Slide 6 -                                                                          6
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Vulnerabilities

●
    'native' vulnerabilities:         ●
                                          3rd party vulnerabilities:
     –   RPC-DCOM                          –   Kuang2 (17300)
         (135, 139, 445, 593)              –   Mydoom (3127)
     –   LSASS (445)                       –   Bagle (2745)
     –   WINS (42)                         –   sasser_ftp (5554, 1023)
     –   MSSQL (1434)                      –   Sub7 (27374)
     –   ASN.1 library in IIS, SMB
         (80 and 445)
     –   IIS (443)
     –   NetDDE (139)
     –   Message queueing
         (2103, 2105, 2107)
     –   UPNP (5000)
                                Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                     - Slide 7 -                                                                          7
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow - modules/handlers




                                 IP info
                               DNS handler
                             Geolookup-handler




                                                          Submit-handlers
      Socket                                                    submit-file
  Vulnerability module                                      submit-nepenthes
   shellcode-handler                                          submit-xmlrpc
                                                             submit-norman




                          Download-handler
                               download-http
                               download-ftp
                               download-tftp




                         Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                              - Slide 8 -                                                                            8
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Categories of modules/handlers (1)

●
    Vulnerability module
     –   Different modules for simulating the vulnerabilities
●
    Shellcode-handler
     –   Per shellcode one module
     –   Common Shellcode Naming Initiative




                            Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                 - Slide 9 -                                                                          9
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow


  [28032006 16:36:25 spam net handler] Socket TCP (accept) 212.30.152.173:2478 -> 212.110.251.73:139 clearing
  DialogueList (2 entries)
  [28032006 16:36:25 warn module] Unknown NETDDE exploit 72 bytes State 1
  [28032006 16:36:25 module] =--------[ /var/log/nepenthes/hexdumps/3ebe8b34fd5d14e4f450c599b26ed6df.bin ]---------=

                                                         IP info
                                                        DNS lookup
                                                        Geolocation




                                                                                                            Submit
    Socket                                                                                                   raw file
    vulnerability                                                                                           nepenthes
     shellcode                                                                                               norman
                                                                                                              xmlrpc




                                                      Download
                                                        curl, ftp, ...




                                              Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                                  - Slide 10 -                                                                                                10
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow


               [28032006 16:36:25 debug dia] Got ASN1 SMB exploit Stage #1(137)
               [28032006 16:36:25 debug net handler] giving data to SMBDialogue



                                                         IP info
                                                        DNS lookup
                                                        Geolocation




                                                                                   Submit
   Socket                                                                           raw file
   vulnerability                                                                   nepenthes
    shellcode                                                                       norman
                                                                                     xmlrpc




                                                       Download
                                                         curl, ftp, ...




                                               Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                                   - Slide 11 -                                                                          11
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Categories of modules/handlers (2)

●
    Geolocation-handler (some alternatives)
     –   Resolves IP address to location information
●
    DNS-handler
     –   Delivers resolved domain name
●
    Download-handler
     –   Downloads through curl
           ●
               Provides http and ftp protocol
     –   Download ftp
           ●
               Needed as curl is not the same than the messy M$ client
           ●
               Netcat is doing the job



                                Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                    - Slide 12 -                                                                          12
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Categories of modules/handlers (3)

●
    Download-handler cont'd
     –   Download tftp
          ●
              Support for tftp protocol
          ●
              Max filesize 4MB
          ●
              Can not handle DNS for the moment

     –   Download nepenthes
          ●
              Listens for file transfers from other nepenthes agents
          ●
              Port can be set in the config file
          ●
              transfer is simple and bandwidth optimised




                               Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                   - Slide 13 -                                                                          13
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow




                                                          IP info
                                                         DNS lookup
                                                         Geolocation




                                                                                                        Submit
       Socket                                                                                            raw file
      vulnerability                                                                                     nepenthes
       shellcode                                                                                         norman
                                                                                                          xmlrpc

 [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] <in virtual bool
 nepenthes::GeoLocationManager::addGeoLocation(nepenthes::GeoLocationCallback*, unsigned int, void*)>
 [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] Adding 808f4c8 212.120.228.59 80f7620 to geolookup
                                                        Download
                                                          curl, ftp, ...




                                                Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                                    - Slide 14 -                                                                                          14
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow

 [28032006 16:36:31 spam net handler] <in virtual int32_t nepenthes::TCPSocket::doRecv()>
 [28032006 16:36:31 spam mgr event] <in virtual uint32_t nepenthes::EventManager::handleEvent(nepenthes::Event*)>
 [28032006 16:36:31 spam net handler] doRecv() 1460
 [28032006 16:36:31 info down handler dia] Downloaded file tftp://212.120.228.59/service.exe 229376 bytes
 [28032006 16:36:31 spam mgr submit] Download has flags 0
 [28032006 16:36:31 info mgr submit] File dd3e4c7c94614a059263a219ff1b1339 has type MS-DOS executable (EXE), OS/2
 or MS Windows
                                                        IP info
                                                       DNS lookup
                                                       Geolocation




                                                                                                        Submit
      Socket                                                                                              raw file
      vulnerability                                                                                      nepenthes
       shellcode                                                                                          norman
                                                                                                           xmlrpc




                                                      Download
                                                        curl, ftp, ...




                                              Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                                  - Slide 15 -                                                                                             15
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Categories of modules/handlers (4)

●
    Submit-handlers
     –   Submit-file
          ●
              Dumps to a file on HDD
     –   submit-nepenthes
          ●
              Submits information to a central server
          ●
              Currently receiving from Telecom Italia Early Warning Team
     –   Submit-norman
          ●
              Submits file to norman sandbox
     –   Submit XML-RPC
          ●
              Submits information to applications outside nepenthes



                              Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                  - Slide 16 -                                                                          16
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow



 [28032006 16:36:31 debug handler submit] wrote file
 /var/log/nepenthes/binaries/dd3e4c7c94614a059263a219ff1b1339 229376 to disk
                                                         IP info
                                                        DNS lookup
                                                        Geolocation




                                                                                   Submit
       Socket                                                                       raw file
      vulnerability                                                                nepenthes
       shellcode                                                                    norman
                                                                                     xmlrpc




                                                       Download
                                                         curl, ftp, ...




                                               Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                                   - Slide 17 -                                                                          17
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow

 [28032006 16:36:31 spam down mgr] SENDING POST /nepenthes/server.php HTTP/1.0
 Host: localhost
 Accept: */*
 Accept-Encoding: deflate
 User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)
 Connection: close
 Content-Length: 392
                                                       IP info
 <methodCall><methodName>init_session</methodName> ..... lookup
                                                      DNS
                                                      Geolocation




                                                                                 Submit
      Socket                                                                      raw file
      vulnerability                                                              nepenthes
       shellcode                                                                  norman
                                                                                   xmlrpc




                                                    Download
                                                      curl, ftp, ...




                                             Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                                 - Slide 18 -                                                                          18
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Nepenthes information flow


 [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] <in virtual void nepenthes::SubmitNorman::Submit(nepenthes::Download*)>
 [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] <in virtual uint32_t nepenthes::SubmitNorman::handleEvent(nepenthes::Event*)>




                                                          IP info
                                                         DNS lookup
                                                         Geolocation




                                                                                                             Submit
      Socket                                                                                                  raw file
      vulnerability                                                                                          nepenthes
       shellcode                                                                                              norman
                                                                                                               xmlrpc




                                                        Download
                                                          curl, ftp, ...




                                                Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                                    - Slide 19 -                                                                                               19
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Additional information collected

●
    Extension to nepenthes - stored in database
     –   Platform information (p0f-sql)
          ●
              P0f hack to submit information into DB
     –   4 AV product results from local machine
          ●
              Extendable
          ●
              Signatures hourly updated
     –   24 AV results from VirusTotal (added later)
     –   2 sandbox results
          ●
              Submitted to http://sandbox.norman.no
          ●
              Submitted to our own POC sandbox (added later)


                            Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                                - Slide 20 -                                                                          20
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Full information set collected

●
    Various static analysis
     –   file, upx, hexdump, strings, objdump
●
    Number of hits
●
    First/last seen
●
    Number/names of recognized virii
●
    Sandbox results
●
    Hex-dump of file (browseable)
●
    IP/URL from where fetched
●
    System
●
    Latitude, Longitude, Country, City
                           Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware
                                               - Slide 21 -                                                                          21
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Setup to collect malware – flow



         Download
                                Nepenthes
          request



       Norman                        XMLRPC       GeoIP
                                                                   File storage
       sandbox        CSRRT           script      lookup
                      sandbox



                                                           Virus scan
           p0f
                                Database
                                                                Periodic
                                                              submissions



          Web                     Unix                                      External Apps
                                                               VirusTotal
        application               tools                                     (e.g. Malware
                                                                              database)




                                    Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics
                                                       - Slide 22 -                                                                               22
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Setup to collect malware – flow



         Download
                                Nepenthes
          request



       Norman                        XMLRPC       GeoIP
                                                                   File storage
       sandbox        CSRRT           script      lookup
                      sandbox



                                                           Virus scan
           p0f
                                Database
                                                                Periodic
                                                              submissions



          Web                     Unix                                      External Apps
                                                               VirusTotal
        application               tools                                     (e.g. Malware
                                                                              database)




                                    Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics
                                                       - Slide 23 -                                                                               23
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Setup to collect malware – flow



         Download
                                Nepenthes
          request



       Norman                        XMLRPC       GeoIP
                                                                   File storage
       sandbox        CSRRT           script      lookup
                      sandbox



                                                           Virus scan
           p0f
                                Database
                                                                Periodic
                                                              submissions



          Web                     Unix                                      External Apps
                                                               VirusTotal
        application               tools                                     (e.g. Malware
                                                                              database)




                                    Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics
                                                       - Slide 24 -                                                                               24
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Setup to collect malware – flow



         Download
                                Nepenthes
          request



       Norman                        XMLRPC       GeoIP
                                                                   File storage
       sandbox        CSRRT           script      lookup
                      sandbox



                                                           Virus scan
           p0f
                                Database
                                                                Periodic
                                                              submissions



          Web                     Unix                                      External Apps
                                                               VirusTotal
        application               tools                                     (e.g. Malware
                                                                              database)




                                    Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics
                                                       - Slide 25 -                                                                               25
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Setup to collect malware – flow



         Download
                                Nepenthes
          request



       Norman                        XMLRPC       GeoIP
                                                                   File storage
       sandbox        CSRRT           script      lookup
                      sandbox



                                                           Virus scan
           p0f
                                Database
                                                                Periodic
                                                              submissions



          Web                     Unix                                      External Apps
                                                               VirusTotal
        application               tools                                     (e.g. Malware
                                                                              database)




                                    Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics
                                                       - Slide 26 -                                                                               26
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Setup to collect malware – flow



         Download
                                Nepenthes
          request



       Norman                        XMLRPC       GeoIP
                                                                   File storage
       sandbox        CSRRT           script      lookup
                      sandbox



                                                           Virus scan
           p0f
                                Database
                                                                Periodic
                                                              submissions



          Web                     Unix                                      External Apps
                                                               VirusTotal
        application               tools                                     (e.g. Malware
                                                                              database)




                                    Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics
                                                       - Slide 27 -                                                                               27
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Statistics

●
    There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and
    statistics. Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
●
    1st set, collected with mwcollect:
     –   Approx 600,000 files (9.2 GB)
     –   542 unique (80 MB)
     –   529 executables
     –   File length: 100 to 1,145,856 Bytes
     –   Time frame: 6 weeks (April - June 2005)
     –   503 MS-Windows executables
     –    26 MS DOS executables


                              Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis
                                                                                                                                       28
                                                   - Slide 28 -
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Statistics

●
    1st set continued
     –   52% of the files were detected by all 4 virus scanners
     –   17% of the files were detected only by 3 virus scanners
     –   25% of the files were detected only by 2 virus scanners
     –    3% of the files were detected only by 1 virus scanner
     –    2% were defective
●
    When scanning files later -> some files detected as Zotob
     –   During collecting time there was no Zotob signature!
          ●
              false positive?
          ●
              test-run?


                                Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis
                                                     - Slide 29 -                                                                        29
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Statistics

●
    2nd set, collected with nepenthes:
        ●
            2,079 unique files
        ●
            209,327 malware downloads complete
        ●
            13% using anti debug/emulation techniques
        ●
            1,852 MS-Windows executables
        ●
             227 MS-DOS executables
        ●
            File length: 1,024 – 1,323,222 (1.3MB) bytes
        ●
            Time frame: December 2005 – March 2006




                            Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis
                                                 - Slide 30 -                                                                        30
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Statistics

●
    Result of immediate scan:
    –   Results of virus scan, directly after reception with
        up-to-date signatures:
         ●
             69.5% Norman Sandbox
         ●
             68.5% Bitdefender
         ●
             58.0% Antivir
         ●
             49.5% F-Prot
         ●
             31.8% ClamAV
    –   Are signature based systems really future-proof?




                             Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis
                                                  - Slide 31 -                                                                        31
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Statistics

●
    Results of re-scan:
    –   96.1%   Panda           –   79.8%   NOD32v2
    –   91.2%   Norman          –   78.9%   UNA
    –   85.9%   Antivir         –   77.2%   AVG
    –   85.9%   Avira           –   76.3%   Symantec
    –   85.1%   Kaspersky       –   75.7%   Ewido
    –   84.7%   DrWeb           –   72.4%   F-Prot
    –   84.5%   Fortinet        –   65.9%   Sophos
    –   83.9%   McAfee          –   65.1%   TheHacker
    –   83.8%   BitDefender     –   64.1%   Ikarus
    –   80.4%   VBA32           –   57.2%   eTrust-Inoculate
    –   80.1%   CAT-QuickHeal   –   54.3%   Avast
                                –   50.7%   ClamAV                                                                   32
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Statistics

●
    Packing/Encrypting statistics using bzip2




                            Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis
                                                 - Slide 33 -                                                                        33
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Statistics

●
    Packing/Encrypting statistics:




                            Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis
                                                 - Slide 34 -                                                                        34
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Analyzing Malware - Side-effects

●
    Malware hides from the analyzer and obfuscates its
    techniques
●
    Automated processes not 100% reliable
     –   Anti-virus products, current sandbox techniques
●
    Last resort: manual investigation
     –   Disassembler, Debugger, file monitors, registry
         monitors, Virtual Machines
     –   Very time consuming and/or requires high skills




                                Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo
                                              - Slide 35 -                                                                35
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Ways to fool the analyzer

 ●
     Modified binary
      –   (multiple) Packing
      –   Encrypting
      –   Header crippling
 ●
     Test presence of Debugger/Disassembler
      –   SoftICE, OllyDbg, Breakpoints, Vmware, ...
      –   http://www.honeynet.org/papers/bots/botnet-code.html
 ●
     Usage of file droppers
      –   Dropper downloads malware and executes it
      –   Malware makes usage of other malware already
          downloaded (e.g. browser hijacker vmmon32.exe)
                                 Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo
                                               - Slide 36 -                                                                36
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Automated analysis

●
    Virus Total:
     –   Free service scanning files with 24 AV products
     –   Submits by default samples to AV vendors
     –   Automated submission through extensions
     –   Virus Total sends back mail with report
     –   Most of the time at least one AV product finds
         malware
     –   Cooperativeness to extend results (e.g. XML, more
         details, ...)
     –   Negative point:
          ●
              Slow – agreed on a 60s interval when sending
              all files (adding more resources in the future)
                                  Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo
                                                - Slide 37 -                                                                37
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Automated analysis

●
    Norman sandbox:
    –   APIs simulating a Windows Computer
    –   Some of the APIs simulate the Network/Internet
        connectivity
    –   Automated submission through nepenthes
    –   Sandbox sends back mail with report
    –   Negative points:
         ●
             often not working because of filled up mail queue
              – Necessity to resubmit
         ●
             Often trapped into anti-debug code
    –   Have to trust the output!
                                 Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo
                                               - Slide 38 -                                                                38
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
    Norman Output
.
Googlesetup.exe : [SANDBOX] contains a security risk - W32/Spybot.gen3 (Signature:
W32/Spybot.AHWZ)
[ General information ]
  * **Locates window "NULL [class mIRC]" on desktop.
  * File length:   133120 bytes.
  * MD5 hash: df2eaaf757053a4a0209c4668efd8d1c.

    [ Changes to filesystem ]
      * Creates file C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32Googlesetup.exe.
      * Deletes file 1.

 [ Changes to registry ]
    * Creates value "Google service"="Googlesetup.exe" in key
"HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun".
[...]

    [ Network services ]
      * Looks for an Internet connection.
      * Connects to "der.ifconfig.us" on port 7000 (TCP).
      * Connects to IRC Server.

    [ Signature Scanning ]
      * C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32Googlesetup.exe (133120 bytes) : W32/Spybot.AHWZ.



                                                     Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo
                                                                   - Slide 39 -                                                                39
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Automated analysis using wine (1)

●
    wine as a (cheap) sandbox approach
     –   Why?
          ●
              Signatures suck
          ●
              wine executed 72% out of 2199 malware files
     –   How?
          ●
              Compare .wine directory with an unmodified one
          ●
              Use debug and trace messages from wine
          ●
              Create report from what is known (~signature)
     –   Security?
          ●
              Outbreak is possible - include an assembler program that
              executes linux system calls via int 80h in the .text section of
              the windows executable
          ●
              we're using user-mode-linux
                                       Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo
                                                     - Slide 40 -                                                                     40
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Automated analysis using wine (2)



   Download   Nepenthes
    request
                XML-RPC                   Database

                    malware



               user-mode-linux

                    malware



                 wine                   Report engine




                                 Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo
                                               - Slide 41 -                                                                41
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Live Demonstration

●
    http://nepenthes.csrrt.org:10080/nepenthes/




                          Analysis – Live Demo – Future development
                                           - Slide 42 -                                                                     42
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Developments and future steps (1)

●
    Early warning / reacting system (so far implemented)
     –   Monitoring and visualization of outbreak waves
     –   Live export of most common attacker IP list
          ●
              To be imported into Firewalls, IDS, ...
     –   Live export of most common download locations
          ●
              To be imported into Proxies, Firewalls, IDS
     –   Company-wide hash-scan with Encase
●
    Better virus scanner comparison
     –   Automatic re-scan of malware files with each signature
         update (partly implemented)


                            Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion
                                              - Slide 43 -                                                                      43
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Developments and future steps (2)

●
    Automated analysis:
     –   Enhance wine sandbox results
     –   rewriting DLLs to log even more
     –   Also very interesting:
           ●
               Diploma Project about automated behavior analysis
           ●
               http://pi1.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/diplomas/show/59
           ●
               Extensive API-hooking approach
●
    MalwareDB
     –   A research database for preserving malicious computer
         programs



                             Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion
                                               - Slide 44 -                                                                      44
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Introduction to Malware DB

–   ”Fred, where is the DVD with the malware
    collected in January?”
–   ”Somewhere on my desk? ... I was sure that
    it was laying on my desk...”
–   ”I really need that to test something...”


●
    MalwareDB Scope
      –   Simple storage mechanism to archive malware
      –   Easy way to tag and classify the malware
      –   Multiple interfaces to query and get the malware
      –   Not a signature database
      –   Not exhaustive


                                   Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion
                                                     - Slide 45 -                                                                      45
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
MalwareDB data store (v1)

●
    MalwareDB only contains metadata for each malware
●
    Files are stored on the filesystem
●
    Malware is identified by SHA-2 (256bits)
●
    For managing collisions (if any), MalwareDB keeps track of:
     –   the original filename
     –   information about file (like magic code, mime/type...)
●
    Source is a unique field to identify the origin of the malware
     –   who or what is submitting the malware
●
    MalwareDB supports free tagging for classification, excluded
    are some reserved prefixes like RFC, CVE, OSVDB,..


                            Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion
                                              - Slide 46 -                                                                      46
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Query the MalwareDB

●
    Using the web interface : http://www.csrrt.org/maldb/index.pl
●
    Using the RSS feed : http://www.csrrt.org/ml/rss/latest.xml
●
    Using the DNS interface to check the existence of a malware
    from its fingerprint:
     –   dig -t TXT 3d5a9097cda0565ccc4a0e8aaa703b8543.187 
         31eb80bce12e8d9958f115fa468.sha1.maldb.csrrt.org
     –   63 bytes have to be separated by a dot to split into
         “subdomains”, server reassembles accordingly
     –   You could use the DNS interface as an RBL-like interface
         for early detection/warning but don’t forget that the
         database is not exhaustive.



                            Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion
                                              - Slide 47 -                                                                      47
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Conclusion about the MalwareDB

●
    First try for a malware database (far from being perfect)
●
    Legal implication (copyright, computer security,...)
●
    Could be used by attackers as a repository
    (measure must be taken to avoid that)




                           Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion
                                             - Slide 48 -                                                                      48
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Conclusions

●
    Nepenthes provides a nice way to collect malware
●
    It can also be used to block intruders/malicious URLs
●
    Early reaction is possible for the attacking vectors implemented
    in nepenthes
●
    Signature based systems definitely not fulfilling requirements
●
    Signature based plus behavioral analysis is definitely a way to
    pursue
●
    Automated analysis is a need, especially when receiving large
    feeds
●
    Hopefully increased joint-effort for sandbox-alike tools in the
    future


                              Future Development – Conclusion – The End
                                               - Slide 49 -                                                                     49
Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
Thanks to

●
    mwcollect.org
     –   Thorsten Holz, Markus Kötter
     –   Paul Baecher, Georg Wicherski
●
    CSRRT-LU
     –   Alexandre Dulaunoy
     –   Gerard Wagener
●
    Hispasec Sistemas (VirusTotal)
     –   Julio Canto
●
    Telecom Italia (Early Warning Team)
     –   Gaetano Zappulla



                                                                                                50
Questions?




     Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
51
Thank you




     Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware
52

More Related Content

PDF
Tos tutorial
PPT
Mac Memory Analysis with Volatility
PDF
Hunting Mac Malware with Memory Forensics
PDF
Toorcon Seattle 2011 - Browser Exploit Packs
PDF
Rootkit&honeypot aalonso-dcu-dec09
PDF
Exploiting Modern Microarchitectures: Meltdown, Spectre, and other Attacks
PDF
Cansec West 2009
PDF
Nagios Conference 2011 - Mike Weber - Training: Choosing Nagios Plugins To Use
Tos tutorial
Mac Memory Analysis with Volatility
Hunting Mac Malware with Memory Forensics
Toorcon Seattle 2011 - Browser Exploit Packs
Rootkit&honeypot aalonso-dcu-dec09
Exploiting Modern Microarchitectures: Meltdown, Spectre, and other Attacks
Cansec West 2009
Nagios Conference 2011 - Mike Weber - Training: Choosing Nagios Plugins To Use

What's hot (11)

PDF
Kernel Memory Protection by an Insertable Hypervisor which has VM Introspec...
PDF
Securing Your Linux System
PPTX
Gnu linux for safety related systems
PDF
LTTng-UST: Efficient System-Wide User-Space Tracing
PPT
1unit2ndpart
PPTX
Meltdown and Spectre
PDF
[PH-Neutral 0x7db] Exploit Next Generation®
PDF
Spectre & Meltdown
PDF
Hakin9 nmap-ebook-ch1
PDF
Kernel Memory Protection by an Insertable Hypervisor which has VM Introspec...
Securing Your Linux System
Gnu linux for safety related systems
LTTng-UST: Efficient System-Wide User-Space Tracing
1unit2ndpart
Meltdown and Spectre
[PH-Neutral 0x7db] Exploit Next Generation®
Spectre & Meltdown
Hakin9 nmap-ebook-ch1
Ad

Similar to Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware (20)

PDF
DEF CON 20 - Botnets Die Hard - Owned and Operated
PDF
Real-time Static Malware Analysis Using NepenthesFE
PDF
Real-Time Static Malware Analysis using NepenthesFE
PPTX
Basic Malware Analysis
PDF
Hack Attack! An Introduction to Penetration Testing
PPTX
NSX 4.0-4.1 Anti-Malware 301 ToI - v1.10.pptx
PDF
"Automated Malware Analysis" de Gabriel Negreira Barbosa, Malware Research an...
PDF
Pitfalls and limits of dynamic malware analysis
PDF
Analisis Estatico y de Comportamiento de un Binario Malicioso
PPT
honeypots.ppt
PDF
Detecting Web Browser Heap Corruption Attacks - Stephan Chenette, Moti Joseph...
PPTX
Unmasking Careto through Memory Forensics (video in description)
PDF
RAT - Repurposing Adversarial Tradecraft
PDF
Internal and External threats to a corporate network : Bypassing perimeter de...
PDF
The Log4Shell Vulnerability – explained: how to stay secure
PPT
Security & ethical hacking
PDF
System monitoring and network intrusion using DDS and CEP
PPT
Security & ethical hacking p2
PDF
MMIX Peering Forum and MMNOG 2020: Packet Analysis for Network Security
PPTX
The Hacking Games - Operation System Vulnerabilities Meetup 29112022
DEF CON 20 - Botnets Die Hard - Owned and Operated
Real-time Static Malware Analysis Using NepenthesFE
Real-Time Static Malware Analysis using NepenthesFE
Basic Malware Analysis
Hack Attack! An Introduction to Penetration Testing
NSX 4.0-4.1 Anti-Malware 301 ToI - v1.10.pptx
"Automated Malware Analysis" de Gabriel Negreira Barbosa, Malware Research an...
Pitfalls and limits of dynamic malware analysis
Analisis Estatico y de Comportamiento de un Binario Malicioso
honeypots.ppt
Detecting Web Browser Heap Corruption Attacks - Stephan Chenette, Moti Joseph...
Unmasking Careto through Memory Forensics (video in description)
RAT - Repurposing Adversarial Tradecraft
Internal and External threats to a corporate network : Bypassing perimeter de...
The Log4Shell Vulnerability – explained: how to stay secure
Security & ethical hacking
System monitoring and network intrusion using DDS and CEP
Security & ethical hacking p2
MMIX Peering Forum and MMNOG 2020: Packet Analysis for Network Security
The Hacking Games - Operation System Vulnerabilities Meetup 29112022
Ad

More from Gaetano Zappulla (8)

PDF
Implementation and implications of a stealth hard drive backdoor
PDF
IOR Annual Report 2012
PDF
Lo IOR pubblica il suo Rapporto Annuale del 2012
PDF
Detecting crypto
PDF
JPMorgan: The Euro area adjustment: about halfway there
PDF
RELAZIONE SULLA POLITICA DELL’INFORMAZIONE PER LA SICUREZZA 2012
PDF
Investigation into the processing of personal data for the whatsapp application
PDF
Apologo sull’onestà nel paese dei corrotti
Implementation and implications of a stealth hard drive backdoor
IOR Annual Report 2012
Lo IOR pubblica il suo Rapporto Annuale del 2012
Detecting crypto
JPMorgan: The Euro area adjustment: about halfway there
RELAZIONE SULLA POLITICA DELL’INFORMAZIONE PER LA SICUREZZA 2012
Investigation into the processing of personal data for the whatsapp application
Apologo sull’onestà nel paese dei corrotti

Recently uploaded (20)

PDF
ENT215_Completing-a-large-scale-migration-and-modernization-with-AWS.pdf
PDF
Developing a website for English-speaking practice to English as a foreign la...
PDF
2021 HotChips TSMC Packaging Technologies for Chiplets and 3D_0819 publish_pu...
PPTX
Programs and apps: productivity, graphics, security and other tools
PDF
Profit Center Accounting in SAP S/4HANA, S4F28 Col11
PDF
From MVP to Full-Scale Product A Startup’s Software Journey.pdf
PDF
DP Operators-handbook-extract for the Mautical Institute
PDF
A novel scalable deep ensemble learning framework for big data classification...
PDF
Zenith AI: Advanced Artificial Intelligence
PDF
A contest of sentiment analysis: k-nearest neighbor versus neural network
PDF
A comparative study of natural language inference in Swahili using monolingua...
PDF
Enhancing emotion recognition model for a student engagement use case through...
PPTX
cloud_computing_Infrastucture_as_cloud_p
PDF
August Patch Tuesday
PDF
1 - Historical Antecedents, Social Consideration.pdf
PPTX
Final SEM Unit 1 for mit wpu at pune .pptx
PDF
gpt5_lecture_notes_comprehensive_20250812015547.pdf
PDF
NewMind AI Weekly Chronicles - August'25-Week II
PDF
NewMind AI Weekly Chronicles – August ’25 Week III
PDF
Getting Started with Data Integration: FME Form 101
ENT215_Completing-a-large-scale-migration-and-modernization-with-AWS.pdf
Developing a website for English-speaking practice to English as a foreign la...
2021 HotChips TSMC Packaging Technologies for Chiplets and 3D_0819 publish_pu...
Programs and apps: productivity, graphics, security and other tools
Profit Center Accounting in SAP S/4HANA, S4F28 Col11
From MVP to Full-Scale Product A Startup’s Software Journey.pdf
DP Operators-handbook-extract for the Mautical Institute
A novel scalable deep ensemble learning framework for big data classification...
Zenith AI: Advanced Artificial Intelligence
A contest of sentiment analysis: k-nearest neighbor versus neural network
A comparative study of natural language inference in Swahili using monolingua...
Enhancing emotion recognition model for a student engagement use case through...
cloud_computing_Infrastucture_as_cloud_p
August Patch Tuesday
1 - Historical Antecedents, Social Consideration.pdf
Final SEM Unit 1 for mit wpu at pune .pptx
gpt5_lecture_notes_comprehensive_20250812015547.pdf
NewMind AI Weekly Chronicles - August'25-Week II
NewMind AI Weekly Chronicles – August ’25 Week III
Getting Started with Data Integration: FME Form 101

Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware

  • 1. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware CanSecWest/core06 Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Sascha Rommelfangen, Fred Arbogast
  • 2. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Outline ● Introduction ● Setup to collect malware ● Statistics ● Analysis ● Live Demo ● Future development – early warning/reacting system approaches – interactive malware database ● Conclusion 2
  • 3. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Definition of malware ● Umbrella term for malicious software ● Not to be confused with defective software ● Designed to infiltrate, damage, control or abuse computer systems without owner's consent ● Legal vocabulary: computer contaminant ● Also used: scumware ● Worms, virii, root kits, spyware, adware Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 3 - 3
  • 4. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware The tools used ● mwcollect by Georg Wicherski – (http://www.mwcollect.org) ● Nepenthes by nepenthes team – (http://nepenthes.sourceforge.net) ● Focus on nepenthes as mwcollect has merged with nepenthes ● Joint effort will result in a more powerful tool Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 4 - 4
  • 5. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Things both tools have in common ● “Low interaction” honeypots ● passive ● catching autonomously spreading malware ● Running in non-native environments ● simulating network services – mwcollect: vulnerable built-in services – nepenthes: additionally 'pre-infected' services ● acting upon exploitation attempts – Downloading malware ● Both tools are Free and Open Source software Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 5 - 5
  • 6. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Tools - nepenthes ● Emulates native and non-native vulnerabilities ● Modular – Know a new exploit, add it as a module ● Support for geolocation information ● Support for submitting malware and additional information – Other instances of nepenthes (distributed installation) – XML-RPC Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 6 - 6
  • 7. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Vulnerabilities ● 'native' vulnerabilities: ● 3rd party vulnerabilities: – RPC-DCOM – Kuang2 (17300) (135, 139, 445, 593) – Mydoom (3127) – LSASS (445) – Bagle (2745) – WINS (42) – sasser_ftp (5554, 1023) – MSSQL (1434) – Sub7 (27374) – ASN.1 library in IIS, SMB (80 and 445) – IIS (443) – NetDDE (139) – Message queueing (2103, 2105, 2107) – UPNP (5000) Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 7 - 7
  • 8. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow - modules/handlers IP info DNS handler Geolookup-handler Submit-handlers Socket submit-file Vulnerability module submit-nepenthes shellcode-handler submit-xmlrpc submit-norman Download-handler download-http download-ftp download-tftp Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 8 - 8
  • 9. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Categories of modules/handlers (1) ● Vulnerability module – Different modules for simulating the vulnerabilities ● Shellcode-handler – Per shellcode one module – Common Shellcode Naming Initiative Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 9 - 9
  • 10. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow [28032006 16:36:25 spam net handler] Socket TCP (accept) 212.30.152.173:2478 -> 212.110.251.73:139 clearing DialogueList (2 entries) [28032006 16:36:25 warn module] Unknown NETDDE exploit 72 bytes State 1 [28032006 16:36:25 module] =--------[ /var/log/nepenthes/hexdumps/3ebe8b34fd5d14e4f450c599b26ed6df.bin ]---------= IP info DNS lookup Geolocation Submit Socket raw file vulnerability nepenthes shellcode norman xmlrpc Download curl, ftp, ... Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 10 - 10
  • 11. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow [28032006 16:36:25 debug dia] Got ASN1 SMB exploit Stage #1(137) [28032006 16:36:25 debug net handler] giving data to SMBDialogue IP info DNS lookup Geolocation Submit Socket raw file vulnerability nepenthes shellcode norman xmlrpc Download curl, ftp, ... Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 11 - 11
  • 12. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Categories of modules/handlers (2) ● Geolocation-handler (some alternatives) – Resolves IP address to location information ● DNS-handler – Delivers resolved domain name ● Download-handler – Downloads through curl ● Provides http and ftp protocol – Download ftp ● Needed as curl is not the same than the messy M$ client ● Netcat is doing the job Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 12 - 12
  • 13. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Categories of modules/handlers (3) ● Download-handler cont'd – Download tftp ● Support for tftp protocol ● Max filesize 4MB ● Can not handle DNS for the moment – Download nepenthes ● Listens for file transfers from other nepenthes agents ● Port can be set in the config file ● transfer is simple and bandwidth optimised Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 13 - 13
  • 14. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow IP info DNS lookup Geolocation Submit Socket raw file vulnerability nepenthes shellcode norman xmlrpc [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] <in virtual bool nepenthes::GeoLocationManager::addGeoLocation(nepenthes::GeoLocationCallback*, unsigned int, void*)> [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] Adding 808f4c8 212.120.228.59 80f7620 to geolookup Download curl, ftp, ... Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 14 - 14
  • 15. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow [28032006 16:36:31 spam net handler] <in virtual int32_t nepenthes::TCPSocket::doRecv()> [28032006 16:36:31 spam mgr event] <in virtual uint32_t nepenthes::EventManager::handleEvent(nepenthes::Event*)> [28032006 16:36:31 spam net handler] doRecv() 1460 [28032006 16:36:31 info down handler dia] Downloaded file tftp://212.120.228.59/service.exe 229376 bytes [28032006 16:36:31 spam mgr submit] Download has flags 0 [28032006 16:36:31 info mgr submit] File dd3e4c7c94614a059263a219ff1b1339 has type MS-DOS executable (EXE), OS/2 or MS Windows IP info DNS lookup Geolocation Submit Socket raw file vulnerability nepenthes shellcode norman xmlrpc Download curl, ftp, ... Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 15 - 15
  • 16. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Categories of modules/handlers (4) ● Submit-handlers – Submit-file ● Dumps to a file on HDD – submit-nepenthes ● Submits information to a central server ● Currently receiving from Telecom Italia Early Warning Team – Submit-norman ● Submits file to norman sandbox – Submit XML-RPC ● Submits information to applications outside nepenthes Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 16 - 16
  • 17. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow [28032006 16:36:31 debug handler submit] wrote file /var/log/nepenthes/binaries/dd3e4c7c94614a059263a219ff1b1339 229376 to disk IP info DNS lookup Geolocation Submit Socket raw file vulnerability nepenthes shellcode norman xmlrpc Download curl, ftp, ... Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 17 - 17
  • 18. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow [28032006 16:36:31 spam down mgr] SENDING POST /nepenthes/server.php HTTP/1.0 Host: localhost Accept: */* Accept-Encoding: deflate User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Connection: close Content-Length: 392 IP info <methodCall><methodName>init_session</methodName> ..... lookup DNS Geolocation Submit Socket raw file vulnerability nepenthes shellcode norman xmlrpc Download curl, ftp, ... Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 18 - 18
  • 19. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Nepenthes information flow [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] <in virtual void nepenthes::SubmitNorman::Submit(nepenthes::Download*)> [28032006 16:36:31 debug spam fixme] <in virtual uint32_t nepenthes::SubmitNorman::handleEvent(nepenthes::Event*)> IP info DNS lookup Geolocation Submit Socket raw file vulnerability nepenthes shellcode norman xmlrpc Download curl, ftp, ... Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 19 - 19
  • 20. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Additional information collected ● Extension to nepenthes - stored in database – Platform information (p0f-sql) ● P0f hack to submit information into DB – 4 AV product results from local machine ● Extendable ● Signatures hourly updated – 24 AV results from VirusTotal (added later) – 2 sandbox results ● Submitted to http://sandbox.norman.no ● Submitted to our own POC sandbox (added later) Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 20 - 20
  • 21. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Full information set collected ● Various static analysis – file, upx, hexdump, strings, objdump ● Number of hits ● First/last seen ● Number/names of recognized virii ● Sandbox results ● Hex-dump of file (browseable) ● IP/URL from where fetched ● System ● Latitude, Longitude, Country, City Outline – Introduction – Setup to collect malware - Slide 21 - 21
  • 22. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Setup to collect malware – flow Download Nepenthes request Norman XMLRPC GeoIP File storage sandbox CSRRT script lookup sandbox Virus scan p0f Database Periodic submissions Web Unix External Apps VirusTotal application tools (e.g. Malware database) Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics - Slide 22 - 22
  • 23. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Setup to collect malware – flow Download Nepenthes request Norman XMLRPC GeoIP File storage sandbox CSRRT script lookup sandbox Virus scan p0f Database Periodic submissions Web Unix External Apps VirusTotal application tools (e.g. Malware database) Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics - Slide 23 - 23
  • 24. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Setup to collect malware – flow Download Nepenthes request Norman XMLRPC GeoIP File storage sandbox CSRRT script lookup sandbox Virus scan p0f Database Periodic submissions Web Unix External Apps VirusTotal application tools (e.g. Malware database) Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics - Slide 24 - 24
  • 25. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Setup to collect malware – flow Download Nepenthes request Norman XMLRPC GeoIP File storage sandbox CSRRT script lookup sandbox Virus scan p0f Database Periodic submissions Web Unix External Apps VirusTotal application tools (e.g. Malware database) Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics - Slide 25 - 25
  • 26. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Setup to collect malware – flow Download Nepenthes request Norman XMLRPC GeoIP File storage sandbox CSRRT script lookup sandbox Virus scan p0f Database Periodic submissions Web Unix External Apps VirusTotal application tools (e.g. Malware database) Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics - Slide 26 - 26
  • 27. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Setup to collect malware – flow Download Nepenthes request Norman XMLRPC GeoIP File storage sandbox CSRRT script lookup sandbox Virus scan p0f Database Periodic submissions Web Unix External Apps VirusTotal application tools (e.g. Malware database) Intro – Setup to collect malware – Statistics - Slide 27 - 27
  • 28. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Statistics ● There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881) ● 1st set, collected with mwcollect: – Approx 600,000 files (9.2 GB) – 542 unique (80 MB) – 529 executables – File length: 100 to 1,145,856 Bytes – Time frame: 6 weeks (April - June 2005) – 503 MS-Windows executables – 26 MS DOS executables Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis 28 - Slide 28 -
  • 29. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Statistics ● 1st set continued – 52% of the files were detected by all 4 virus scanners – 17% of the files were detected only by 3 virus scanners – 25% of the files were detected only by 2 virus scanners – 3% of the files were detected only by 1 virus scanner – 2% were defective ● When scanning files later -> some files detected as Zotob – During collecting time there was no Zotob signature! ● false positive? ● test-run? Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis - Slide 29 - 29
  • 30. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Statistics ● 2nd set, collected with nepenthes: ● 2,079 unique files ● 209,327 malware downloads complete ● 13% using anti debug/emulation techniques ● 1,852 MS-Windows executables ● 227 MS-DOS executables ● File length: 1,024 – 1,323,222 (1.3MB) bytes ● Time frame: December 2005 – March 2006 Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis - Slide 30 - 30
  • 31. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Statistics ● Result of immediate scan: – Results of virus scan, directly after reception with up-to-date signatures: ● 69.5% Norman Sandbox ● 68.5% Bitdefender ● 58.0% Antivir ● 49.5% F-Prot ● 31.8% ClamAV – Are signature based systems really future-proof? Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis - Slide 31 - 31
  • 32. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Statistics ● Results of re-scan: – 96.1% Panda – 79.8% NOD32v2 – 91.2% Norman – 78.9% UNA – 85.9% Antivir – 77.2% AVG – 85.9% Avira – 76.3% Symantec – 85.1% Kaspersky – 75.7% Ewido – 84.7% DrWeb – 72.4% F-Prot – 84.5% Fortinet – 65.9% Sophos – 83.9% McAfee – 65.1% TheHacker – 83.8% BitDefender – 64.1% Ikarus – 80.4% VBA32 – 57.2% eTrust-Inoculate – 80.1% CAT-QuickHeal – 54.3% Avast – 50.7% ClamAV 32
  • 33. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Statistics ● Packing/Encrypting statistics using bzip2 Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis - Slide 33 - 33
  • 34. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Statistics ● Packing/Encrypting statistics: Setup to collect malware – Statistics – Analysis - Slide 34 - 34
  • 35. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Analyzing Malware - Side-effects ● Malware hides from the analyzer and obfuscates its techniques ● Automated processes not 100% reliable – Anti-virus products, current sandbox techniques ● Last resort: manual investigation – Disassembler, Debugger, file monitors, registry monitors, Virtual Machines – Very time consuming and/or requires high skills Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo - Slide 35 - 35
  • 36. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Ways to fool the analyzer ● Modified binary – (multiple) Packing – Encrypting – Header crippling ● Test presence of Debugger/Disassembler – SoftICE, OllyDbg, Breakpoints, Vmware, ... – http://www.honeynet.org/papers/bots/botnet-code.html ● Usage of file droppers – Dropper downloads malware and executes it – Malware makes usage of other malware already downloaded (e.g. browser hijacker vmmon32.exe) Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo - Slide 36 - 36
  • 37. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Automated analysis ● Virus Total: – Free service scanning files with 24 AV products – Submits by default samples to AV vendors – Automated submission through extensions – Virus Total sends back mail with report – Most of the time at least one AV product finds malware – Cooperativeness to extend results (e.g. XML, more details, ...) – Negative point: ● Slow – agreed on a 60s interval when sending all files (adding more resources in the future) Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo - Slide 37 - 37
  • 38. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Automated analysis ● Norman sandbox: – APIs simulating a Windows Computer – Some of the APIs simulate the Network/Internet connectivity – Automated submission through nepenthes – Sandbox sends back mail with report – Negative points: ● often not working because of filled up mail queue – Necessity to resubmit ● Often trapped into anti-debug code – Have to trust the output! Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo - Slide 38 - 38
  • 39. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Norman Output . Googlesetup.exe : [SANDBOX] contains a security risk - W32/Spybot.gen3 (Signature: W32/Spybot.AHWZ) [ General information ] * **Locates window "NULL [class mIRC]" on desktop. * File length: 133120 bytes. * MD5 hash: df2eaaf757053a4a0209c4668efd8d1c. [ Changes to filesystem ] * Creates file C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32Googlesetup.exe. * Deletes file 1. [ Changes to registry ] * Creates value "Google service"="Googlesetup.exe" in key "HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun". [...] [ Network services ] * Looks for an Internet connection. * Connects to "der.ifconfig.us" on port 7000 (TCP). * Connects to IRC Server. [ Signature Scanning ] * C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32Googlesetup.exe (133120 bytes) : W32/Spybot.AHWZ. Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo - Slide 39 - 39
  • 40. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Automated analysis using wine (1) ● wine as a (cheap) sandbox approach – Why? ● Signatures suck ● wine executed 72% out of 2199 malware files – How? ● Compare .wine directory with an unmodified one ● Use debug and trace messages from wine ● Create report from what is known (~signature) – Security? ● Outbreak is possible - include an assembler program that executes linux system calls via int 80h in the .text section of the windows executable ● we're using user-mode-linux Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo - Slide 40 - 40
  • 41. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Automated analysis using wine (2) Download Nepenthes request XML-RPC Database malware user-mode-linux malware wine Report engine Statistics – Analysis – Live Demo - Slide 41 - 41
  • 42. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Live Demonstration ● http://nepenthes.csrrt.org:10080/nepenthes/ Analysis – Live Demo – Future development - Slide 42 - 42
  • 43. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Developments and future steps (1) ● Early warning / reacting system (so far implemented) – Monitoring and visualization of outbreak waves – Live export of most common attacker IP list ● To be imported into Firewalls, IDS, ... – Live export of most common download locations ● To be imported into Proxies, Firewalls, IDS – Company-wide hash-scan with Encase ● Better virus scanner comparison – Automatic re-scan of malware files with each signature update (partly implemented) Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion - Slide 43 - 43
  • 44. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Developments and future steps (2) ● Automated analysis: – Enhance wine sandbox results – rewriting DLLs to log even more – Also very interesting: ● Diploma Project about automated behavior analysis ● http://pi1.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/diplomas/show/59 ● Extensive API-hooking approach ● MalwareDB – A research database for preserving malicious computer programs Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion - Slide 44 - 44
  • 45. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Introduction to Malware DB – ”Fred, where is the DVD with the malware collected in January?” – ”Somewhere on my desk? ... I was sure that it was laying on my desk...” – ”I really need that to test something...” ● MalwareDB Scope – Simple storage mechanism to archive malware – Easy way to tag and classify the malware – Multiple interfaces to query and get the malware – Not a signature database – Not exhaustive Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion - Slide 45 - 45
  • 46. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware MalwareDB data store (v1) ● MalwareDB only contains metadata for each malware ● Files are stored on the filesystem ● Malware is identified by SHA-2 (256bits) ● For managing collisions (if any), MalwareDB keeps track of: – the original filename – information about file (like magic code, mime/type...) ● Source is a unique field to identify the origin of the malware – who or what is submitting the malware ● MalwareDB supports free tagging for classification, excluded are some reserved prefixes like RFC, CVE, OSVDB,.. Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion - Slide 46 - 46
  • 47. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Query the MalwareDB ● Using the web interface : http://www.csrrt.org/maldb/index.pl ● Using the RSS feed : http://www.csrrt.org/ml/rss/latest.xml ● Using the DNS interface to check the existence of a malware from its fingerprint: – dig -t TXT 3d5a9097cda0565ccc4a0e8aaa703b8543.187 31eb80bce12e8d9958f115fa468.sha1.maldb.csrrt.org – 63 bytes have to be separated by a dot to split into “subdomains”, server reassembles accordingly – You could use the DNS interface as an RBL-like interface for early detection/warning but don’t forget that the database is not exhaustive. Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion - Slide 47 - 47
  • 48. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Conclusion about the MalwareDB ● First try for a malware database (far from being perfect) ● Legal implication (copyright, computer security,...) ● Could be used by attackers as a repository (measure must be taken to avoid that) Live Demo – Future development – Conclusion - Slide 48 - 48
  • 49. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Conclusions ● Nepenthes provides a nice way to collect malware ● It can also be used to block intruders/malicious URLs ● Early reaction is possible for the attacking vectors implemented in nepenthes ● Signature based systems definitely not fulfilling requirements ● Signature based plus behavioral analysis is definitely a way to pursue ● Automated analysis is a need, especially when receiving large feeds ● Hopefully increased joint-effort for sandbox-alike tools in the future Future Development – Conclusion – The End - Slide 49 - 49
  • 50. Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware Thanks to ● mwcollect.org – Thorsten Holz, Markus Kötter – Paul Baecher, Georg Wicherski ● CSRRT-LU – Alexandre Dulaunoy – Gerard Wagener ● Hispasec Sistemas (VirusTotal) – Julio Canto ● Telecom Italia (Early Warning Team) – Gaetano Zappulla 50
  • 51. Questions? Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware 51
  • 52. Thank you Zen and the art of collecting and analyzing malware 52