Userland API Monitoring and Code Injection Detection
About This Paper
The following document is a result of self-research of malicious software (malware) and its interaction with the Windows Application Programming Interface (WinAPI). It details the fundamental concepts behind how malware is able to implant malicious payloads into other processes and how it is possible to detect such functionality by monitoring communication with the Windows operating system. The notion of observing calls to the API will also be illustrated by the procedure of hooking certain functions which will be used to achieve the code injection techniques.
Disclaimer: Since this was a relatively accelerated project due to some time constraints, I would like to kindly apologise in advance for any potential misinformation that may be presented and would like to ask that I be notified as soon as possible so that it may revised. On top of this, the accompanying code may be under-developed for practical purposes and have unforseen design flaws.
Contents
- Introduction
- Section I: Fundemental Concepts
- Section II: UnRunPE
- Section III: Dreadnought
- Conclusion
- References
Introduction
In the present day, malware are developed by cyber-criminals with the intent of compromising machines that may be leveraged to perform activities from which they can profit. For many of these activities, the malware must be able survive out in the wild, in the sense that they must operate covertly with all attempts to avert any attention from the victims of the infected and thwart detection by anti-virus software. Thus, the inception of stealth via code injection was the solution to this problem.
Section I: Fundamental Concepts
Inline Hooking
Inline hooking is the act of detouring the flow of code via hotpatching. Hotpatching is defined as the modification of code during the runtime of an executable image[1]. The purpose of inline hooking is to be able to capture the instance of when the program calls a function and then from there, observation and/or manipulation of the call can be accomplished. Here is a visual representation of how normal execution works:
Normal Execution of a Function Call
+---------+ +----------+
| Program | ----------------------- calls function -----------------------------> | Function | | execution
+---------+ | . | | of
| . | | function
| . | |
| | v
+----------+
versus execution of a hooked function:
Execution of a Hooked Function Call
+---------+ +--------------+ + -------> +----------+
| Program | -- calls function --> | Intermediate | | execution | | Function | | execution
+---------+ | Function | | of calls | . | | of
| . | | intermediate normal | . | | function
| . | | function function | . | |
| . | v | | | v
+--------------+ ------------------+ +----------+
This can be separated into three steps. To demonstrate this process, the WinAPI function MessageBox will be used.
- Hooking the function
To hook the function, we first require the intermediate function which must replicate parameters of the targetted function. Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) defines MessageBox as the following:
int WINAPI MessageBox(
_In_opt_ HWND hWnd,
_In_opt_ LPCTSTR lpText,
_In_opt_ LPCTSTR lpCaption,
_In_ UINT uType
);
So the intermediate function may be defined like so:
int WINAPI HookedMessageBox(HWND hWnd, LPCTSTR lpText, LPCTSTR lpCaption, UINT uType) {
// our code in here
}
Once this exists, execution flow has somewhere for the code to be redirected. To actually hook the MessageBox function, the first few bytes of the code can be patched (keep in mind that the original bytes must be saved so that the function may be restored for when the intermediate function is finished). Here are the original assembly instructions of the function as represented in its corresponding module user32.dll:
; MessageBox
8B FF mov edi, edi
55 push ebp
8B EC mov ebp, esp
versus the hooked function:
; MessageBox
68 xx xx xx xx push <HookedMessageBox> ; our intermediate function
C3 ret
Here I have opted to use the push-ret combination instead of an absolute jmp due to my past experiences of it not being reliable for reasons to be discovered. xx xx xx xx represents the little-endian byte-order address of HookedMessageBox.
- Capturing the function call
When the program calls MessageBox, it will execute the push-ret and effectively jump into the HookedMessageBox function and once there, it has complete control over the paramaters and the call itself. To replace the text that will be shown on the message box dialog, the following can be defined in HookedMessageBox:
int WINAPI HookedMessageBox(HWND hWnd, LPCTSTR lpText, LPCTSTR lpCaption, UINT uType) {
TCHAR szMyText[] = TEXT("This function has been hooked!");
}
szMyText can be used to replace the LPCTSTR lpText parameter of MessageBox.
- Resuming normal execution
To forward this parameter, execution needs to continue to the original MessageBox so that the operating system can display the dialog. Since calling MessageBox again will just result in an infinite recursion, the original bytes must be restored (as previously mentioned).
int WINAPI HookedMessageBox(HWND hWnd, LPCTSTR lpText, LPCTSTR lpCaption, UINT uType) {
TCHAR szMyText[] = TEXT("This function has been hooked!");
// restore the original bytes of MessageBox
// ...
// continue to MessageBox with the replaced parameter and return the return value to the program
return MessageBox(hWnd, szMyText, lpCaption, uType);
}
If rejecting the call to MessageBox was desired, it is as easy as returning a value, preferrably one that is defined in the documentation. For example, to return the “No” option from a “Yes/No” dialog, the intermediate function can be:
int WINAPI HookedMessageBox(HWND hWnd, LPCTSTR lpText, LPCTSTR lpCaption, UINT uType) {
return IDNO; // IDNO defined as 7
}
API Monitoring
The concept of API monitoring follows on from function hooking. Because gaining control of function calls is possible, observation of all of the parameters is also possible, as previously mentioned hence the name API monitoring. However, there is a small issue which is caused by the availability of different high-level API calls that are unique but operate using the same set of API at a lower level. This is called function wrapping, defined as subroutines whose purpose is to call a secondary subroutine. Returning to the MessageBox example, there are two defined functions: MessageBoxA for parameters that contain ASCII characters and a MessageBoxW for parameters that contain wide characters. In reality, to hook MessageBox, it is required that both MessageBoxA and MessageBoxW be patched. The solution to this problem is to hook at the lowest possible common point of the function call hierarchy.
+---------+
| Program |
+---------+
/ \
| |
+------------+ +------------+
| Function A | | Function B |
+------------+ +------------+
| |
+-------------------------------+
| user32.dll, kernel32.dll, ... |
+-------------------------------+
+---------+ +-------- hook -----------------> |
| API | <---- + +-------------------------------------+
| Monitor | <-----+ | ntdll.dll |
+---------+ | +-------------------------------------+
+-------- hook -----------------> | User mode
-----------------------------------------------------
Kernel mode
Here is what the MessageBox call hierarchy looks like:
Here is MessageBoxA:
user32!MessageBoxA -> user32!MessageBoxExA -> user32!MessageBoxTimeoutA -> user32!MessageBoxTimeoutW
and MessageBoxW:
user32!MessageBoxW -> user32!MessageBoxExW -> user32!MessageBoxTimeoutW
The call hierarchy both funnel into MessageBoxTimeoutW which is an appropriate location to hook. For functions that have a deeper hierarchy, hooking any lower could prove to be unecessarily troublesome due to the possibility of an increasing complexity of the function’s parameters. MessageBoxTimeoutW is an undocumented WinAPI function and is defined[2] like so:
int WINAPI MessageBoxTimeoutW(
HWND hWnd,
LPCWSTR lpText,
LPCWSTR lpCaption,
UINT uType,
WORD wLanguageId,
DWORD dwMilliseconds
);
To log the usage:
int WINAPI MessageBoxTimeoutW(HWND hWnd, LPCWSTR lpText, LPCWSTR lpCaption, UINT uType, WORD wLanguageId, DWORD dwMilliseconds) {
std::wofstream logfile; // declare wide stream because of wide parameters
logfile.open(L"log.txt", std::ios::out | std::ios::app);
logfile << L"Caption: " << lpCaption << L"\n";
logfile << L"Text: " << lpText << L"\n";
logfile << L"Type: " << uType << :"\n";
logfile.close();
// restore the original bytes
// ...
// pass execution to the normal function and save the return value
int ret = MessageBoxTimeoutW(hWnd, lpText, lpCaption, uType, wLanguageId, dwMilliseconds);
// rehook the function for next calls
// ...
return ret; // return the value of the original function
}
Once the hook has been placed into MessageBoxTimeoutW, MessageBoxA and MessageBoxW should both be captured.
Code Injection Primer
For the purposes of this paper, code injection will be defined as the insertion of executable code into an external process. The possibility of injecting code is a natural result of the functionality allowed by the WinAPI. If certain functions are stringed together, it is possible to access an existing process, write data to it and then execute it remotely under its context. In this section, the relevant techniques of code injection that was covered in the research will be introduced.
DLL Injection
Code can come from a variety of forms, one of which is a Dynamic Link Library (DLL). DLLs are libraries that are designed to offer extended functionality to an executable program which is made available by exporting subroutines. Here is an example DLL that will be used for the remainder of the paper:
extern "C" void __declspec(dllexport) Demo() {
::MessageBox(nullptr, TEXT("This is a demo!"), TEXT("Demo"), MB_OK);
}
bool APIENTRY DllMain(HINSTANCE hInstDll, DWORD fdwReason, LPVOID lpvReserved) {
if (fdwReason == DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH)
::CreateThread(nullptr, 0, (LPTHREAD_START_ROUTINE)Demo, nullptr, 0, nullptr);
return true;
}
When a DLL is loaded into a process and initialised, the loader will call DllMain with fdwReason set to DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH. For this example, when it is loaded into a process, it will thread the Demo subroutine to display a message box with the title Demo and the text This is a demo!. To correctly finish the initialisation of a DLL, it must return true or it will be unloaded.
CreateRemoteThread
DLL injection via the CreateRemoteThread function utilises this function to execute a remote thread in the virtual space of another process. As mentioned above, all that is required to execute a DLL is to have it load into the process by forcing it to execute the LoadLibrary function. The following code can be used to accomplish this:
void injectDll(const HANDLE hProcess, const std::string dllPath) {
LPVOID lpBaseAddress = ::VirtualAllocEx(hProcess, nullptr, dllPath.length(), MEM_COMMIT | MEM_RESERVE, PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE);
::WriteProcessMemory(hProcess, lpBaseAddress, dllPath.c_str(), dllPath.length(), &dwWritten);
HMODULE hModule = ::GetModuleHandle(TEXT("kernel32.dll"));
LPVOID lpStartAddress = ::GetProcAddress(hModule, "LoadLibraryA"); // LoadLibraryA for ASCII string
::CreateRemoteThread(hProcess, nullptr, 0, (LPTHREAD_START_ROUTINE)lpStartAddress, lpBaseAddress, 0, nullptr);
}
MSDN defines LoadLibrary as:
HMODULE WINAPI LoadLibrary(
_In_ LPCTSTR lpFileName
);
It takes a single parameter which is the path name to the desired library to load. The CreateRemoteThread function allows one parameter to be passed into the thread routine which matches exactly that of LoadLibrary's function definition. The goal is to allocate the string parameter in the virtual address space of the target process and then pass that allocated space’s address into the parameter argument of CreateRemoteThread so that LoadLibrary can be invoked to load the DLL.
- Allocating virtual memory in the target process
Using VirtualAllocEx allows space to be allocated within a selected process and on success, it will return the starting address of the allocated memory.
Virtual Address Space of Target Process
+--------------------+
| |
VirtualAllocEx +--------------------+
Allocated memory ---> | Empty space |
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
| Executable |
| Image |
+--------------------+
| |
| |
+--------------------+
| kernel32.dll |
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
- Writing the DLL path to allocated memory
Once memory has been initialised, the path to the DLL can be injected into the allocated memory returned by VirtualAllocEx using WriteProcessMemory.
Virtual Address Space of Target Process
+--------------------+
| |
WriteProcessMemory +--------------------+
Inject DLL path ----> | "..\..\myDll.dll" |
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
| Executable |
| Image |
+--------------------+
| |
| |
+--------------------+
| kernel32.dll |
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
- Get address of
LoadLibrary
Since all system DLLs are mapped to the same address space across all processes, the address of LoadLibrary does not have to be directly retrieved from the target process. Simply calling GetModuleHandle(TEXT("kernel32.dll")) and GetProcAddress(hModule, "LoadLibraryA") will do the job.
- Loading the DLL
The address of LoadLibrary and the path to the DLL are the two main elements required to load the DLL. Using the CreateRemoteThread function, LoadLibrary is executed under the context of the target process with the DLL path as a parameter.
Virtual Address Space of Target Process
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
+--------- | "..\..\myDll.dll" |
| +--------------------+
| | |
| +--------------------+ <---+
| | myDll.dll | |
| +--------------------+ |
| | | | LoadLibrary
| +--------------------+ | loads
| | Executable | | and
| | Image | | initialises
| +--------------------+ | myDll.dll
| | | |
| | | |
CreateRemoteThread v +--------------------+ |
LoadLibraryA("..\..\myDll.dll") --> | kernel32.dll | ----+
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
SetWindowsHookEx
Windows offers developers the ability to monitor certain events with the installation of hooks by using the SetWindowsHookEx function. While this function is very common in the monitoring of keystrokes for keylogger functionality, it can also be used to inject DLLs. The following code demonstrates DLL injection into itself:
int main() {
HMODULE hMod = ::LoadLibrary(DLL_PATH);
HOOKPROC lpfn = (HOOKPROC)::GetProcAddress(hMod, "Demo");
HHOOK hHook = ::SetWindowsHookEx(WH_GETMESSAGE, lpfn, hMod, ::GetCurrentThreadId());
::PostThreadMessageW(::GetCurrentThreadId(), WM_RBUTTONDOWN, (WPARAM)0, (LPARAM)0);
// message queue to capture events
MSG msg;
while (::GetMessage(&msg, nullptr, 0, 0) > 0) {
::TranslateMessage(&msg);
::DispatchMessage(&msg);
}
return 0;
}
SetWindowsHookEx defined by MSDN as:
HHOOK WINAPI SetWindowsHookEx(
_In_ int idHook,
_In_ HOOKPROC lpfn,
_In_ HINSTANCE hMod,
_In_ DWORD dwThreadId
);
takes a HOOKPROC parameter which is a user-defined callback subroutine that is executed when the specific hook event is trigged. In this case, the event is WH_GETMESSAGE which deals with messages in the message queue. The code initially loads the DLL into its own virtual process space and the exported Demo function’s address is obtained and defined as the callback function in the call to SetWindowsHookEx. To force the callback function to execute, PostThreadMessage is called with the message WM_RBUTTONDOWN which will trigger the WH_GETMESSAGE hook and thus the message box will be displayed.
QueueUserAPC
DLL injection with QueueUserAPC works similar to that of CreateRemoteThread. Both allocate and inject the DLL path into the virtual address space of a target process and then force a call to LoadLibrary under its context.
int injectDll(const std::string dllPath, const DWORD dwProcessId, const DWORD dwThreadId) {
HANDLE hProcess = ::OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, false, dwProcessId);
HANDLE hThread = ::OpenThread(THREAD_ALL_ACCESS, false, dwThreadId);
LPVOID lpLoadLibraryParam = ::VirtualAllocEx(hProcess, nullptr, dllPath.length(), MEM_COMMIT, PAGE_READWRITE);
::WriteProcessMemory(hProcess, lpLoadLibraryParam, dllPath.data(), dllPath.length(), &dwWritten);
::QueueUserAPC((PAPCFUNC)::GetProcAddress(::GetModuleHandle(TEXT("kernel32.dll")), "LoadLibraryA"), hThread, (ULONG_PTR)lpLoadLibraryParam);
return 0;
}
One major difference between this and CreateRemoteThread is that QueueUserAPC operates on alertable states. Asynchronous procedures queued by QueueUserAPC are only handled when a thread enters this state.
Process Hollowing
Process hollowing, AKA RunPE, is a popular method used to evade anti-virus detection. It allows the injection of entire executable files to be loaded into a target process and executed under its context. Often seen in crypted applications, a file on disk that is compatible with the payload is selected as the host and is created as a process, has its main executable module hollowed out and replaced. This procedure can be broken up into four stages.
- Creating a host process
In order for the payload to be injected, the bootstrap must first locate a suitable host. If the payload is a .NET application, the host must also be a .NET application. If the payload is a native executable defined to use the console subsystem, the host must also reflect the same attributes. The same is applied to x86 and x64 programs. Once the host has been chosen, it is created as a suspended process using CreateProcess(PATH_TO_HOST_EXE, ..., CREATE_SUSPENDED, ...).
Executable Image of Host Process
+--- +--------------------+
| | PE |
| | Headers |
| +--------------------+
| | .text |
| +--------------------+
CreateProcess + | .data |
| +--------------------+
| | ... |
| +--------------------+
| | ... |
| +--------------------+
| | ... |
+--- +--------------------+
- Hollowing the host process
For the payload to work correctly after injection, it must be mapped to a virtual address space that matches its ImageBase value found in the optional header of the payload’s PE headers.
typedef struct _IMAGE_OPTIONAL_HEADER {
WORD Magic;
BYTE MajorLinkerVersion;
BYTE MinorLinkerVersion;
DWORD SizeOfCode;
DWORD SizeOfInitializedData;
DWORD SizeOfUninitializedData;
DWORD AddressOfEntryPoint; // <---- this is required later
DWORD BaseOfCode;
DWORD BaseOfData;
DWORD ImageBase; // <----
DWORD SectionAlignment;
DWORD FileAlignment;
WORD MajorOperatingSystemVersion;
WORD MinorOperatingSystemVersion;
WORD MajorImageVersion;
WORD MinorImageVersion;
WORD MajorSubsystemVersion;
WORD MinorSubsystemVersion;
DWORD Win32VersionValue;
DWORD SizeOfImage; // <---- size of the PE file as an image
DWORD SizeOfHeaders;
DWORD CheckSum;
WORD Subsystem;
WORD DllCharacteristics;
DWORD SizeOfStackReserve;
DWORD SizeOfStackCommit;
DWORD SizeOfHeapReserve;
DWORD SizeOfHeapCommit;
DWORD LoaderFlags;
DWORD NumberOfRvaAndSizes;
IMAGE_DATA_DIRECTORY DataDirectory[IMAGE_NUMBEROF_DIRECTORY_ENTRIES];
} IMAGE_OPTIONAL_HEADER, *PIMAGE_OPTIONAL_HEADER;
This is important because it is more than likely that absolute addresses are involved within the code which is entirely dependent on its location in memory. To safely map the executable image, the virtual memory space starting at the described ImageBase value must be unmapped. Since many executables share common base addresses (usually 0x400000), it is not uncommon to see the host process’s own executable image unmapped as a result. This is done with NtUnmapViewOfSection(IMAGE_BASE, SIZE_OF_IMAGE).
Executable Image of Host Process
+--- +--------------------+
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
NtUnmapViewOfSection + | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--- +--------------------+
- Injecting the payload
To inject the payload, the PE file must be parsed manually to transform it from its disk form to its image form. After allocating virtual memory with VirtualAllocEx, the PE headers are directly copied to that base address.
Executable Image of Host Process
+--- +--------------------+
| | PE |
| | Headers |
+--- +--------------------+
| | |
| | |
WriteProcessMemory + | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+--------------------+
To convert the PE file to an image, all of the sections must be individually read from their file offsets and then placed correctly into their correct virtual offsets using WriteProcessMemory. This is described in each of the sections’ own section header.
typedef struct _IMAGE_SECTION_HEADER {
BYTE Name[IMAGE_SIZEOF_SHORT_NAME];
union {
DWORD PhysicalAddress;
DWORD VirtualSize;
} Misc;
DWORD VirtualAddress; // <---- virtual offset
DWORD SizeOfRawData;
DWORD PointerToRawData; // <---- file offset
DWORD PointerToRelocations;
DWORD PointerToLinenumbers;
WORD NumberOfRelocations;
WORD NumberOfLinenumbers;
DWORD Characteristics;
} IMAGE_SECTION_HEADER, *PIMAGE_SECTION_HEADER;
Executable Image of Host Process
+--------------------+
| PE |
| Headers |
+--- +--------------------+
| | .text |
+--- +--------------------+
WriteProcessMemory + | .data |
+--- +--------------------+
| | ... |
+---- +--------------------+
| | ... |
+---- +--------------------+
| | ... |
+---- +--------------------+
- Execution of payload
The final step is to point the starting address of execution to the payload’s aforementioned AddressOfEntryPoint. Since the process’s main thread is suspended, using GetThreadContext to retrieve the relevant information. The context structure is defined as:
typedef struct _CONTEXT
{
ULONG ContextFlags;
ULONG Dr0;
ULONG Dr1;
ULONG Dr2;
ULONG Dr3;
ULONG Dr6;
ULONG Dr7;
FLOATING_SAVE_AREA FloatSave;
ULONG SegGs;
ULONG SegFs;
ULONG SegEs;
ULONG SegDs;
ULONG Edi;
ULONG Esi;
ULONG Ebx;
ULONG Edx;
ULONG Ecx;
ULONG Eax; // <----
ULONG Ebp;
ULONG Eip;
ULONG SegCs;
ULONG EFlags;
ULONG Esp;
ULONG SegSs;
UCHAR ExtendedRegisters[512];
} CONTEXT, *PCONTEXT;
To modify the starting address, the Eax member must be changed to the virtual address of the payload’s AddressOfEntryPoint. Simply, context.Eax = ImageBase + AddressOfEntryPoint. To apply the changes to the process’s thread, calling SetThreadContext and passing in the modified CONTEXT struct is sufficient. All that is required now is to call ResumeThread and payload should start execution.
Atom Bombing
The Atom Bombing is a code injection technique that takes advantage of global data storage via Windows’s global atom table. The global atom table’s data is accessible across all processes which is what makes it a viable approach. The data stored in the table is a null-terminated C-string type and is represented with a 16-bit integer key called the atom, similar to that of a map data structure. To add data, MSDN provides a GlobalAddAtom function and is defined as:
ATOM WINAPI GlobalAddAtom(
_In_ LPCTSTR lpString
);
where lpString is the data to be stored. The 16-bit integer atom is returned on a successful call. To retrieve the data stored in the global atom table, MSDN provides a GlobalGetAtomName defined as:
UINT WINAPI GlobalGetAtomName(
_In_ ATOM nAtom,
_Out_ LPTSTR lpBuffer,
_In_ int nSize
);
Passing in the identifying atom returned from GlobalAddAtom will place the data into lpBuffer and return the length of the string excluding the null-terminator.
Atom bombing works by forcing the target process to load and execute code placed within the global atom table and this relies on one other crucial function, NtQueueApcThread, which is lowest level userland call for QueueUserAPC. The reason why NtQueueApcThread is used over QueueUserAPC is because, as seen before, QueueUserAPC's APCProc only receives one parameter which is a parameter mismatch compared to GlobalGetAtomName[3].
VOID CALLBACK APCProc( UINT WINAPI GlobalGetAtomName(
_In_ ATOM nAtom,
_In_ ULONG_PTR dwParam -> _Out_ LPTSTR lpBuffer,
_In_ int nSize
); );
However, the underlying implementation of NtQueueApcThread allows for three potential parameters:
NTSTATUS NTAPI NtQueueApcThread( UINT WINAPI GlobalGetAtomName(
_In_ HANDLE ThreadHandle, // target process's thread
_In_ PIO_APC_ROUTINE ApcRoutine, // APCProc (GlobalGetAtomName)
_In_opt_ PVOID ApcRoutineContext, -> _In_ ATOM nAtom,
_In_opt_ PIO_STATUS_BLOCK ApcStatusBlock, _Out_ LPTSTR lpBuffer,
_In_opt_ ULONG ApcReserved _In_ int nSize
); );
Here is a visual representation of the code injection procedure:
Atom bombing code injection
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
| lpBuffer | <-+
| | |
+--------------------+ |
+---------+ | | | Calls
| Atom | +--------------------+ | GlobalGetAtomName
| Bombing | | Executable | | specifying
| Process | | Image | | arbitrary
+---------+ +--------------------+ | address space
| | | | and loads shellcode
| | | |
| NtQueueApcThread +--------------------+ |
+---------- GlobalGetAtomName ----> | ntdll.dll | --+
+--------------------+
| |
+--------------------+
This is a very simplified overview of atom bombing but should be adequate for the remainder of the paper. For more information on atom bombing, please refer to enSilo’s AtomBombing: Brand New Code Injection for Windows.
Section II: UnRunPE
UnRunPE is a proof-of-concept (PoC) tool that was created for the purposes of applying API monitoring theory to practice. It aims to create a chosen executable file as a suspended process into which a DLL will be injected to hook specific functions utilised by the process hollowing technique.
Code Injection Detection
From the code injection primer, the process hollowing method was described with the following WinAPI call chain:
CreateProcessNtUnmapViewOfSectionVirtualAllocExWriteProcessMemoryGetThreadContextSetThreadContextResumeThread
A few of these calls do not have to be in this specific order, for example, GetThreadContext can be called before VirtualAllocEx. However, the general arrangement cannot deviate much because of the reliance on former API calls, for example, SetThreadContext must be called before GetThreadContext or CreateProcess must be called first otherwise there will be no target process to inject the payload. The tool assumes this as a basis on which it will operate in an attempt to detect a potentially active process hollowing.
Following the theory of API monitoring, it is best to hook the lowest, common point but when it comes it malware, it should ideally be the lowest possible that is accessible. Assuming a worst case scenario, the author may attempt to skip the higher-level WinAPI functions and directly call the lowest function in the call hierarchy, usually found in the ntdll.dll module. The following WinAPI functions are the lowest in the call hierarchy for process hollowing:
NtCreateUserProcessNtUnmapViewOfSectionNtAllocateVirtualMemoryNtWriteVirtualMemoryNtGetContextThreadNtSetContextThreadNtResumeThread
Code Injection Dumping
Once the necessary functions are hooked, the target process is executed and each of the hooked functions’ parameters are logged to keep track of the current progress of the process hollowing and the host process. The most significant hooks are NtWriteVirtualMemory and NtResumeThread because the former applies the injection of the code and the latter executes it. Along with logging the parameters, UnRunPE will also attempt to dump the bytes written using NtWriteVirtualMemory and then when NtResumeThread is reached, it will attempt to dump the entire payload that has been injected into the host process. To achieve this, it uses the process and thread handle parameters logged in NtCreateUserProcess and the base address and size logged from NtUnmapViewOfSection. Using the parameters provided by NtAllocateVirtualMemory may be more appropriate however, due to some unknown reasons, hooking that function results in some runtime errors. When the payload has been dumped from NtResumeThread, it will terminate the target process and its host process to prevent execution of the injected code.
UnRunPE Demonstration
For the demonstration, I have chosen to use a trojanised binary that I had previously created as an experiment. It consists of the main executable PEview.exe and PuTTY.exe as the hidden executable.
Section III: Dreadnought
Dreadnought is a PoC tool that was built upon UnRunPE to support a wider variety of code injection detection, namely, those listed in Code Injection Primer. To engineer such an application, a few augmentations are required.
Detecting Code Injection Method
Because there are so many methods of code injection, differentiating each technique was a necessity. The first approach to this was to recognise a “trigger” API call, that is, the API call which would peform the remote execution of the payload. Using this would do two things: identify the completion of and, to an extent, the type of the code injection. The type can be categorised into four groups:
- Section: Code injected as/into a section
- Process: Code injected into a process
- Code: Generic code injection or shellcode
- DLL: Code injected as DLLs
Process Injection Info Graphic[4] by Karsten Hahn
Each trigger API is listed underneath Execute. When either of these APIs have been reached, Dreadought will perform a code dumping method that matches the assumed injection type in a similar fashion to what occurs with process hollowing in UnRunPE. Reliance on this is not enough because there is still potential for API calls to be mixed around to achieve the same functionality as displayed from the stemming of arrows.
Heuristics
For Dreadnought to be able to determine code injection methods more accurately, a heuristic should be involved as an assist. In the development, a very simplistic heuristic was applied. Following the process injection infographic, every time an API was hooked, it would increase the weight of one or more of the associated code injection types stored within a map data structure. As it traces each API call, it will start to favour a certain type. Once the trigger API has been entered, it will identify and compare the weights of the relevant types and proceed with an appropriate action.
Dreadnought Demonstration
Process Injection - Process Hollowing
DLL Injection - SetWindowsHookEx
DLL Injection - QueueUserAPC
Code Injection - Atom Bombing
Conclusion
This paper aimed to bring a technical understanding of code injection and its interaction with the WinAPI. Furthermore, the concept of API monitoring in userland was entertained with the malicious use of injection methods utilised by malware to bypass anti-virus detection. The following presents the current status of Dreadnought as of this writing.
Limitations
Dreadnought’s current heuristic and detection design is incredibly poor but was sufficient enough for theoretical demonstration purposes. Practical use may not be ideal since there is a high possibility that there will be collateral with respect to the hooked API calls during regular operations with the operating system. Because of the impossibility to discern benign from malicious behaviour, false positives and negatives may arise as a result.
With regards to Dreadnought and its operations within userland, it may not be ideal use when dealing with sophisticated malware, especially those which have access to direct interactions with the kernel and those which have the capabilities to evade hooks in general.
PoC Repositories
References
-
[1] https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-06/BH-US-06-Sotirov.pdf
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[2] https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/7914/MessageBoxTimeout-API
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[3] https://blog.ensilo.com/atombombing-brand-new-code-injection-for-windows
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[4] http://struppigel.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/process-injection-info-graphic.html
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