CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent

Created the Monday 18 March 2019. Updated 3 months, 1 week ago.

CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent is a kernel32.dll function that sets (-1)0xffffffff in the DebuggerPresent parameter if a debugger is present. Internally, it also uses NtQueryInformationProcess with ProcessDebugPort as a ProcessInformationClass parameter.

Technique Identifiers

U0121 B0001.002

Code Snippets

#include "windows.h"
 
int main(void)
{
    BOOL HasDebugPort = FALSE;
 
    if (CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent(GetCurrentProcess(), &HasDebugPort))
    {
           ExitProcess(0); // Running in ring-3 debugger
    }
    // Running outside ring-3 debugger
    return 0;

Detection Rules

                                    rule:
  meta:
    name: check for debugger via API
    namespace: anti-analysis/anti-debugging/debugger-detection
    author: michael.hunhoff@fireeye.com
    scope: function
    mbc:
      - Anti-Behavioral Analysis::Debugger Detection::CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent [B0001.002]
      - Anti-Behavioral Analysis::Debugger Detection::WudfIsAnyDebuggerPresent [B0001.031]
    references:
      - https://github.com/LordNoteworthy/al-khaser/blob/master/al-khaser/AntiDebug/CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent.cpp
    examples:
      - al-khaser_x86.exe_:0x420000
  features:
    - or:
      - api: kernel32.CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent
      - api: WUDFPlatform.WudfIsAnyDebuggerPresent
      - api: WUDFPlatform.WudfIsKernelDebuggerPresent
      - api: WUDFPlatform.WudfIsUserDebuggerPresent

Contributors

Additional Resources

External Links

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CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent function (debugapi.h) - Win32 apps | Microsoft Docs