Debug Registers, Hardware Breakpoints

Created the Friday 13 November 2020. Updated 2 years, 2 months ago.

Registers DR0 through DR3 contain the linear address associated with one of the four hardware breakpoint conditions. For anti-debugging, malware will check the contents of the first four debug registers to see if the hardware breakpoint has been set.

Technique Identifier

U0127

Technique Tag

DR0

Code Snippets

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {

    HANDLE thread = GetCurrentThread();
    CONTEXT threadContext;
    int errorCode;

    memset(&threadContext, 0, sizeof(CONTEXT));
    threadContext.ContextFlags = CONTEXT_ALL;

    if( !GetThreadContext(thread, &threadContext) ){
        errorCode = GetLastError();
        puts("Could not get thread context");
        return errorCode;
    }

    if( threadContext.Dr0 || threadContext.Dr1 || threadContext.Dr2 || threadContext.Dr3 ){
        puts("Detected");
    }
    else{
        puts("Undetected");
    }

    return 0;
}

Detection Rules

                                    rule:
  meta:
    name: check for hardware breakpoints
    namespace: anti-analysis/anti-debugging/debugger-detection
    author: michael.hunhoff@fireeye.com
    scope: function
    mbc:
      - Anti-Behavioral Analysis::Debugger Detection::Hardware Breakpoints [B0001.005]
    references:
      - https://github.com/LordNoteworthy/al-khaser/blob/master/al-khaser/AntiDebug/HardwareBreakpoints.cpp
    examples:
      - al-khaser_x86.exe_:0x42035D
  features:
    - and:
      - api: kernel32.GetThreadContext
      - number: 0x10010 = CONTEXT_DEBUG_REGISTERS
      - offset: 0x4 = DR0
      - offset: 0x8 = DR1
      - offset: 0xC = DR2
      - offset: 0x10 = DR3
      - count(mnemonic(cmp)): 4 or more

Additional Resources

External Links

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