Sandbox Evasion

Red Pill is a technique used by malware to determine whether it is running on a physical machine or a virtual machine. The Red Pill technique involves executing the SIDT instruction, which retrieves the value of the Interrupt Descriptor Table Register (IDTR) and stores it in a memory location.

On a physical machine, the IDTR will contain the address …

Sandbox Evasion

The IN instruction is a type of machine code instruction that is used to read data from an input port. This instruction can only be executed in privileged mode, such as in kernel mode, and an attempt to execute it in user mode will generate an exception.

However, some virtual machine monitors, such as VMWare, use a special port …

Defense Evasion [Mitre]

Adversaries may employ various system checks to detect and avoid virtualization and analysis environments. This may include changing behaviors based on the results of checks for the presence of artifacts indicative of a virtual machine environment (VME) or sandbox. If the adversary detects a VME, they may alter their malware to disengage from the victim or conceal the core functions …

Defense Evasion [Mitre]

Adversaries may employ various time-based methods to detect and avoid virtualization and analysis environments. This may include enumerating time-based properties, such as uptime or the system clock, as well as the use of timers or other triggers to avoid a virtual machine environment (VME) or sandbox, specifically those that are automated or only operate for a limited amount of time.

Sandbox Evasion

Some files are created by Virtualbox and VMware on the system.

Malware can check the different folders to find Virtualbox artifacts like VBoxMouse.sys.

Malware can check the different folders to find VMware artifacts like vmmouse.sys, vmhgfs.sys.

Some Files Example

Below is a list of files that can be detected on virtual machines:

• "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\agent.pyw",
…