System Binary Proxy Execution: Mavinject Defense Evasion [Mitre]

Adversaries may abuse mavinject.exe to proxy execution of malicious code. Mavinject.exe is the Microsoft Application Virtualization Injector, a Windows utility that can inject code into external processes as part of Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V).

Adversaries may abuse mavinject.exe to inject malicious DLLs into running processes (i.e. Dynamic-link Library Injection), allowing for arbitrary code execution (ex. C:\Windows\system32\mavinject.exe PID /INJECTRUNNING PATH_DLL). …

Template Injection Defense Evasion [Mitre]

Adversaries may create or modify references in user document templates to conceal malicious code or force authentication attempts. For example, Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) specification defines an XML-based format for Office documents (.docx, xlsx, .pptx) to replace older binary formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt). OOXML files are packed together ZIP archives compromised of various XML files, referred to as parts, …

Trusted Developer Utilities Proxy Execution: MSBuild Defense Evasion [Mitre]

Adversaries may use MSBuild to proxy execution of code through a trusted Windows utility. MSBuild.exe (Microsoft Build Engine) is a software build platform used by Visual Studio. It handles XML formatted project files that define requirements for loading and building various platforms and configurations.

Adversaries can abuse MSBuild to proxy execution of malicious code. The inline task capability of …

Constant Blinding Data Obfuscation

Constant blinding can be employed by malware authors to obfuscate their malicious code, making it harder for security researchers and antivirus software to detect and analyze the malware. By using constant blinding techniques, the malware code can be concealed, increasing its chances of evading detection and maintaining persistence on the target system.

Here's how constant blinding can be utilized …

Shikata Ga Nai (SGN) Data Obfuscation

Shikata Ga Nai (SGN) is a data obfuscation technique that employs a polymorphic binary encoding scheme. It was initially developed by Ege Balci and gained popularity through its implementation in Metasploit Framework's msfvenom. SGN takes a binary input and generates a self-decoding obfuscated shellcode. The algorithm utilizes a XOR feedback loop for encoding and prefixes a decoding routine to the …

FuncIn Antivirus/EDR Evasion Anti-Debugging Anti-Disassembly Anti-Forensic

FuncIn involves a payload staging strategy wherein the entire set of malicious functionalities is not contained within the malware file itself or any third-party file/network location (e.g., a web server). Instead, these functionalities are transmitted over the network by the Command and Control (C2) server when required.

This approach addresses three primary issues in malware development. Firstly, it mitigates …

Onset Delay Sandbox Evasion

Malware will delay execution to avoid analysis by the sample. For example, a Ping can be perform during a time defined. Unlike extended sleep that will use the Sleep function, onset delay will use another way to delay execution.

The purpose of such evasive code is to delay the execution of malicious activity long enough so that automated analysis …

Big File Antivirus/EDR Evasion

Because of the imposed file size limit, you can trick the scanner into skipping a file by changing the file’s size to make it larger than the hard-coded size limit. This file size limit applies especially with heuristic engines based on static data (data extracted from the portable executable, or PE, header). This is an old trick still apply in …

IsDebuggerPresent Anti-Debugging

This function checks specific flag in the Process Environment Block (PEB) for the field IsDebugged which will return zero if the process is not running into a debugger or a nonzero if a debugger is attached.

If you want to understand the underlying process of IsDebuggerPresent API you can check the code snippet section for the following method: IsDebugged …

NtSetInformationThread Anti-Debugging

NtSetInformationThread can be used to hide threads from debuggers using the ThreadHideFromDebugger ThreadInfoClass (0x11 / 17). This is intended to be used by an external process, but any thread can use it on itself.

After the thread is hidden from the debugger, it will continue running but the debugger won’t receive events related to this thread. …

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