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RemoteWriteMonitor

RemoteWriteMonitor is a tool to help malware analysts tell that the sample is injecting code to another process. This tool is designed to find a possible remote code injection and execution without use of NtCreateThread/Ex(), APC or thread context manipulation.

A supporting tool 'TestInjector' is a sample program doing that type of code injection.

A related blog entry can be found here:

http://standa-note.blogspot.ca/2015/03/section-based-code-injection-and-its.html

Installation and Uninstallation

Get an archive file for compiled files form this link:

https://github.com/tandasat/RemoteWriteMonitor/releases/latest

Then use the 'sc' command. For installation:

>sc create rwmon type= kernel binPath= C:\Users\user\Desktop\RemoteWriteMonitor.sys
>sc start rwmon

For uninstallation:

>sc stop rwmon
>sc delete rwmon

On the x64 bit platform, you have to enable test signing to install the driver. To do that, open the command prompt with the administrator privilege and type the following command:

bcdedit /set {current} testsigning on

Then, reboot the system to activate the change. You also have to disable the Kernel Patch Protection (PatchGuard); DisPG may be use of.

Usage

Once you have installed it, you may execute the sample and see output from the driver if any.

The driver reports when any process newly created after the installation called NtWriteVirtualMemory() or NtMapViewOfSection() against another process and saves what was written or mapped into the remote process. Output can be seen with DebugView and are all saved under the C:\Windows\RemoteWriteMonitor\ directory. Written and mapped data is stored as <SHA1>.bin apart from a log file.

'TestInjector' could be used to test the driver's function. Injecting and executing code into notepad.exe can be done by the following commands:

>notepad && tasklist | findstr notepad
notepad.exe                   3368 Console                    1      4,564 K

>TestInjector 3368 section context
Remote Address   : 00180000
Waiting for the thread get executed.
Remote Thread ID : 1912

>TestInjector 3368 alloc context
Remote Address   : 001B0000
Remote Thread ID : 2156

Output on DebugView would look like this:

Note that the TestInjector only works against 32 bit processes.

Caveats

• It reports all those API calls regardless of its memory protection, contents being written and whether it gets executed. Thus, you should only focus on output related to the sample you are analyzing as it reports a lot of legit activities too.

• It was designed so because it is far more difficult to track all written regions and reports only when it is executed.

• It does not monitor any of processes existed when the driver was installed. Thus, the second injection will not be reported if the sample injects code into explorer.exe, and then the injected code in the explorer.exe injects code into another process.

• Saved memory contents may or may not be the same as what was executed because the driver only takes dump at occurrence of those API calls. This is particularly true in the case of ZwMapViewOfSection().

• These are limitations but will be fine for letting analysts know injection may be happening.

Supported Platform(s)

• Windows 7 SP1 and 8.1 (x86/x64)

License

This software is released under the MIT License, see LICENSE.