CloseHandle, NtClose

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

When a process is debugged, calling NtClose or CloseHandle with an invalid handle will generate a STATUS_INVALID_HANDLE exception.

The exception can be cached by an exception handler. If the control is passed to the exception handler, it indicates that a debugger is present.

Technique Identifiers

U0114 B0001.003

Technique Tags

closehandle ntclose

Code Snippets

Description

Original source code is available here: https://anti-debug.checkpoint.com/techniques/object-handles.html#closehandle

bool Check()
{
    __try
    {
        CloseHandle((HANDLE)0xDEADBEEF);
        return false;
    }
    __except (EXCEPTION_INVALID_HANDLE == GetExceptionCode()
                ? EXCEPTION_EXECUTE_HANDLER 
                : EXCEPTION_CONTINUE_SEARCH)
    {
        return true;
    }
}

Detection Rules

                                    rule Detect_CloseHandle: AntiDebug {
    meta: 
        description = "Detect CloseHandle as anti-debug"
        author = "Unprotect"
        comment = "Experimental rule"
    strings:
        $1 = "NtClose" fullword ascii
        $2 = "CloseHandle" fullword ascii
    condition:   
       uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and filesize < 1000KB and any of them
}

                                    rule:
  meta:
    name: check for protected handle exception
    namespace: anti-analysis/anti-debugging/debugger-detection
    author: michael.hunhoff@fireeye.com
    scope: function
    mbc:
      - Anti-Behavioral Analysis::Debugger Detection::SetHandleInformation [B0001.024]
    references:
      - https://github.com/LordNoteworthy/al-khaser/blob/master/al-khaser/AntiDebug/SetHandleInformation_API.cpp
    examples:
      - al-khaser_x86.exe_:0x430D20
  features:
    - and:
      - basic block:
        - and:
          - count(number(2)): 2 or more
          - api: SetHandleInformation
      - api: CloseHandle

Contributors

Additional Resources

External Links

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