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FileInsight-plugins: decoding toolbox of McAfee FileInsight hex editor for malware analysis

FileInsight-plugins is a large set of plugins for McAfee FileInsight hex editor. It adds many capabilities such as decryption, decompression, searching XOR-ed text strings, scanning with a YARA rule, code emulation, disassembly, and more! It is useful for various kinds of decoding tasks in malware analysis (e.g. extracting malware executables and decoy documents from malicious document files).

For those looking for FileInishgt installer, it is available at https://downloadcenter.trellix.com/products/mcafee-avert/fileinsight.msi.

• Screenshots
• Presentations
• Use cases
• How to install
• How to use
• How to update
• Customization
• List of plugins (153 plugins)

Screenshots

Dialog of "AES decrypt" plugin

Scan result of "YARA scan" plugin

Data structure of ELF executable file parsed by "Parse file structure" plugin

Emulation trace of ARM64 Linux shellcode emulated by "Emulate code" plugin

Disassembly output of x86 Linux shellcode disassembled by "Disassemble" plugin

Bitmap representation of Windows executable file visualized by "Bitmap view" plugin

Byte histogram of Excel file shown by "Byte histogram" plugin

Entropy graph of Windows executable file shown by "Entropy graph" plugin

Presentations

Black Hat USA 2021 Arsenal

• Abstract at Black Hat USA website
• Slide deck
• Demo movie

CODE BLUE 2019 Bluebox

• Abstract at CODE BLUE website
• Slide deck (English)
• Slide deck (Japanese)

Use cases

• Use case 1: executable file embedded in Excel file
• Use case 2: executable file embedded in RTF file
• Use case 3: obfuscated PHP webshell
• Use case 4: YARA rule testing
• Use case 5: Code emulation

How to install

Please execute the following command. The latest release version of FileInsight-plugins and pre-requisites including FileInsight and Python 3.10.x (x64) will be installed.

powershell -exec bypass -command "IEX((New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nmantani/FileInsight-plugins/master/install.ps1'))"

If you use a proxy server (for example, IP address: 10.0.0.1, port: 8080), please execute the following commands.

curl -x http://10.0.0.1:8080 -Lo install.ps1 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nmantani/FileInsight-plugins/master/install.ps1
powershell -exec bypass .\install.ps1

There are a few Python modules that is necessary manual installation. Please follow installation instructions displayed by plugins.

How to use

Please click "Operations" in the "Plugins" tab then select a plugin.

You can also use plugins from the right-click menu.

Some plugins show an additional dialog for plugin settings at the point of use.

How to update

If you would like to update FileInsight-plugins to the latest release version, please click "Check for update" of the plugin menu. The installation PowerShell script (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nmantani/FileInsight-plugins/master/install.ps1) will be executed if new version is available. Existing files will be overwritten.

You can also update with the following command ("Check for update" executes this command).

powershell -exec bypass -command "& ([scriptblock]::Create((New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nmantani/FileInsight-plugins/master/install.ps1'))) -update"

If you use a proxy server (for example, IP address: 10.0.0.1, port: 8080), please execute the following commands.

curl -x http://10.0.0.1:8080 -Lo install.ps1 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nmantani/FileInsight-plugins/master/install.ps1
powershell -exec bypass .\install.ps1 -update

If you would like to update FileInsight-plugins to the latest snapshot, please add "-snapshot" option.

powershell -exec bypass -command "& ([scriptblock]::Create((New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nmantani/FileInsight-plugins/master/install.ps1'))) -update -snapshot"

Customization

For the "Send to (CLI)" plugin and the "Send to (GUI)" plugin, you can open files with your favorite programs. Please click "Customize menu" of the plugin menu.

"plugins\Operations\Misc\send_to_cli.json" (for the "Send to (CLI)" plugin) or "plugins\Operations\Misc\send_to.json" (for the "Send to (GUI)" plugin) will be opened with your default text editor. Please edit and save it.

Your customization will be reflected in menu items.

List of plugins (153 plugins)

Basic operations

• Copy to new file
  Copy selected region (the whole file if not selected) to a new file
• Switch file tabs
  Switch file tabs with a listbox
• Bookmark
  Bookmark selected region with specified comment and color
• Cut binary to clipboard
  Cut binary data of selected region to clipboard as hex-encoded text
• Copy binary to clipboard
  Copy binary data of selected region to clipboard as hex-encoded text
• Paste binary from clipboard
  Paste binary data (converted from hex-encoded text) from clipboard
• Delete before
  Delete all region before the current cursor position
• Delete after
  Delete all region after the current cursor position
• Fill
  Fill selected region with specified hex pattern
• Invert
  Invert bits of selected region
• Reverse order
  Reverse order of selected region
• Change endianness
  Change endianness of selected region
• Swap nibbles
  Swap each pair of nibbles of selected region
• Swap two bytes
  Swap each pair of bytes of selected region
• To upper case
  Convert text to upper case of selected region
• To lower case
  Convert text to lower case of selected region
• Swap case
  Swap case of selected region

Compression operations

Compress

• aPLib
  Compress selected region with aPLib compression library
• Brotli
  Compress selected region with Brotli algorithm
• Bzip2
  Compress selected region with bzip2 algorithm
• Gzip
  Compress selected region with gzip format
• LZ4
  Compress selected region with LZ4 algorithm
• LZF
  Compress selected region with LZF algorithm
• LZFSE
  Compress selected region with LZFSE algorithm
• lzip
  Compress selected region with lzip format
• LZJB
  Compress selected region with LZJB algorithm
• LZMA
  Compress selected region with LZMA algorithm
• LZNT1
  Compress selected region with LZNT1 algorithm
• LZO
  Compress selected region with LZO algorithm
• LZRW1/KH
  Compress selected region with LZRW1/KH algorithm
• PPMd
  Compress selected region with PPMd algorithm
• QuickLZ
  Compress selected region with QuickLZ compression library
• Raw deflate
  Compress selected region with Deflate algorithm without header and checksum (equivalent to gzdeflate() in PHP language)
• Snappy
  Compress selected region with Snappy compression library
• XZ
  Compress selected region with XZ format
• zlib (deflate)
  Compress selected region with zlib (Deflate algorithm)
• Zstandard
  Compress selected region with Zstandard algorithm

Decompress

• aPLib
  Decompress selected region with aPLib compression library
• Brotli
  Decompress selected region with Brotli algorithm
• Bzip2
  Decompress selected region with bzip2 algorithm
• Gzip
  Decompress selected gzip-compressed region
• LZ4
  Decompress selected region with LZ4 algorithm
• LZF
  Decompress selected region with LZF algorithm
• LZFSE
  Decompress selected region with LZFSE algorithm
• lzip
  Decompress selected lzip compressed region
• LZJB
  Decompress selected region with LZJB algorithm
• LZMA
  Decompress selected region with LZMA algorithm
• LZNT1
  Decompress selected region with LZNT1 algorithm
• LZO
  Decompress selected region with LZO algorithm
• LZRW1/KH
  Decompress selected region with LZRW1/KH algorithm
• PPMd
  Decompress selected region with PPMd algorithm
• QuickLZ
  Decompress selected region with QuickLZ compression library
• Raw inflate
  Decompress selected Deflate compressed region that does not have header and checksum (equivalent to gzinflate() in PHP language)
• Snappy
  Decompress selected region with Snappy compression library
• XZ
  Decompress selected XZ compressed region
• zlib (inflate)
  Decompress selected region with zlib (Deflate algorithm)
• Zstandard
  Decompress selected region with Zstandard algorithm

Crypto operations

Decrypt

• AES
  Decrypt selected region with AES
• Blowfish
  Decrypt selected region with Blowfish
• CAST-128
  Decrypt selected region with CAST-128
• Camellia
  Decrypt selected region with Camellia
• ChaCha20
  Decrypt selected region with ChaCha20
• DES
  Decrypt selected region with DES
• RC2
  Decrypt selected region with RC2
• RC4
  Decrypt selected region with RC4
• RC5
  Decrypt selected region with RC5
• RC6
  Decrypt selected region with RC6
• Salsa20
  Decrypt selected region with Salsa20
• TEA
  Decrypt selected region with TEA (Tiny Encryption Algorithm)
• Triple DES
  Decrypt selected region with Triple DES
• XTEA
  Decrypt selected region with XTEA (eXtended Tiny Encryption Algorithm)
• XXTEA
  Decrypt selected region with XXTEA (Corrected Block Tiny Encryption Algorithm)

Encrypt

• AES
  Encrypt selected region with AES
• Blowfish
  Encrypt selected region with Blowfish
• CAST-128
  Encrypt selected region with CAST-128
• Camellia
  Encrypt selected region with Camellia
• ChaCha20
  Encrypt selected region with ChaCha20
• DES
  Encrypt selected region with DES
• RC2
  Encrypt selected region with RC2
• RC4
  Encrypt selected region with RC4
• RC5
  Encrypt selected region with RC5
• RC6
  Encrypt selected region with RC6
• Salsa20
  Encrypt selected region with Salsa20
• TEA
  Encrypt selected region with TEA (Tiny Encryption Algorithm)
• Triple DES
  Encrypt selected region with Triple DES
• XTEA
  Encrypt selected region with XTEA (eXtended Tiny Encryption Algorithm)
• XXTEA
  Decrypt selected region with XXTEA (Corrected Block Tiny Encryption Algorithm)

Encoding operations

Decode

• Hex text to binary data
  Convert hex text of selected region into binary
• Decimal text to binary data
  Convert decimal text of selected region into binary data
• Octal text to binary data
  Convert octal text of selected region into binary data
• Binary text to binary data
  Convert binary text of selected region into binary data
• Custom base16 decode
  Decode selected region with custom base16 table
• Custom base32 decode
  Decode selected region with custom base32 table
• Custom base58 decode
  Decode selected region with custom base58 table
• Custom base62 decode
  Decode selected region with custom base62 table
• Custom base64 decode
  Decode selected region with custom base64 table
• Custom base85 decode
  Decode selected region with custom base85 table
• Custom base91 decode
  Decode selected region with custom base91 table
• gob decode
  Decode selected region as gob (serialization format for golang) serialized data into Python notation
• MessagePack decode
  Decode selected region as MessagePack serialized data into JSON
• Protobuf decode
  Decode selected region as Protocol Buffers serialized data into JSON without .proto files
• From quoted printable
  Decode selected region as quoted printable text
• Unicode unescape
  Unescape Unicode escape sequence of selected region
• URL decode
  Decode selected region as percent-encoded text that is used by URL

Encode

• Binary data to hex text
  Convert binary of selected region into hex text
• Binary data to decimal text
  Convert binary of selected region into decimal text
• Binary data to octal text
  Convert binary of selected region into octal text
• Binary data to binary text
  Convert binary of selected region into binary text
• Custom base16 encode
  Encode selected region with custom base16 table
• Custom base32 encode
  Encode selected region with custom base32 table
• Custom base58 encode
  Encode selected region with custom base58 table
• Custom base62 encode
  Encode selected region with custom base62 table
• Custom base64 encode
  Encode selected region with custom base64 table
• Custom base85 encode
  Encode selected region with custom base85 table
• Custom base91 encode
  Encode selected region with custom base91 table
• MessagePack encode
  Encode JSON of selected region into MessagePack serialized data
• ROT13
  Rotate alphabet characters in selected region by the specified amount (default: 13)
• To quoted printable
  Encode selected region into quoted printable text
• Unicode escape
  Escape Unicode characters of selected region
• URL encode
  Encode selected region into percent-encoded text that is used by URL

Misc operations

• Emulate code
  Emulate selected region as an executable or shellcode (the whole file if not selected)
• File comparison
  Compare contents of two files
• Hash values
  Calculate CRC32, MD5, SHA1, SHA256, ssdeep, TLSH, imphash, impfuzzy, exphash, Rich PE header hash, authentihash, icon MD5, icon dhash, gimphash, and telfhash values of selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• Send to (CLI)
  Send selected region (the whole file if not selected) to other CLI program and get output
• Send to (GUI)
  Send selected region (the whole file if not selected) to other GUI program

Parsing operations

• Binwalk scan
  Scan selected region (the whole file if not selected) to find embedded files
• Disassemble
  Disassemble selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• Extract VBA macro
  Extract Microsoft Office VBA macro from selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• File type
  Identify file type of selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• Find PE file
  Find PE file from selected region (the whole file if not selected) based on PE header information
• Parse file structure
  Parse file structure of selected region (the whole file if not selected) with Kaitai Struct
  Supported file formats: Gzip, RAR, ZIP, ELF, Mach-O, PE, MBR partition table, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, Windows shortcut
• Show metadata
  Show metadata of selected region (the whole file if not selected) with ExifTool
• Strings
  Extract text strings from selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• String type
  Identify type of strings such as API keys and cryptocurrency wallet addresses in the selected region (the whole file if not selected) with lemmeknow

Search operations

• Regex extraction
  Search with regular expression in selected region (the whole file if not selected) and extract matched regions as single concatenated region
• Regex search
  Search with regular expression in selected region (the whole file if not selected) and bookmark matched regions
• Replace
  Search with regular expression in selected region (the whole file if not selected) and replace matched regions with specified data
• XOR hex search
  Search XORed / bit-rotated data in selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• XOR text search
  Search XORed / bit-rotated string in selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• YARA scan
  Scan selected region (the whole file if not selected) with YARA.

Visualization operations

• Bitmap view
  Visualize the whole file as a bitmap representation
• Byte histogram
  Show byte histogram of selected region (the whole file if not selected)
• Entropy graph
  Show entropy graph of selected region\n(the whole file if not selected)

XOR operations

• Simple XOR
  XOR selected region with specified XOR key
• Decremental XOR
  XOR selected region while decrementing XOR key
• Incremental XOR
  XOR selected region while incrementing XOR key
• Null-preserving XOR
  XOR selected region while skipping null bytes and XOR key itself
• XOR with another file
  XOR selected region with the content of another file as XOR key
• XOR with next byte
  XOR selected region while using next byte as XOR key
• XOR with next byte (reverse)
  Reverse operation of "XOR with next byte" plugin
• Guess multibyte XOR keys
  Guess multibyte XOR keys from selected region (the whole file if not selected) based on revealed keys that are XORed with 0x00
• Visual encrypt
  Encode selected region with visual encrypt algorithm that is used by Zeus trojan
• Visual decrypt
  Decode selected region with visual decrypt algorithm that is used by Zeus trojan

Author

Nobutaka Mantani (X: @nmantani)

License

The BSD 2-Clause License (http://opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php)