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Before yesterdayExploit Monday

Updating Device Guard Code Integrity Policies

30 December 2016 at 23:01
In previous posts about Device Guard, I spent a lot of time talking about initial code integrity (CI) configurations and bypasses. What I haven't covered until now however is an extremely important topic: how does one effectively install software and update CI policies according? In this post, I will walk you through how I got Chrome installed on my Surface Book running on an enforced Device Guard code integrity policy.

The first questions I posed to myself were:
  1. Should I place my system into audit mode, install the software, and base an updated policy on CodeIntegrity event log entries?
  2. Or should I install the software on a separate, non Device Guard protected system, analyze the file footprint, develop a policy based on the installed files, deploy, and test?
My preference is option #2 as I would prefer to not place a system back into audit mode if I can avoid it. That said, audit mode would yield the most accurate results as it would tell you exactly which binaries would have been blocked that you would want to base whitelist rules off of. In this case, there's no right or wrong answer. My decision to go with option #2 was to base my rules solely off binaries that execute post-installation, not during installation. My mantra with whitelisting is to be as restrictive as is reasonable.

So how did I go about beginning to enumerate the file footprint of Chrome?
  1. I opened Chrome, ran it as I usually would, and used PowerShell to enumerate loaded modules.
  2. I also happened to know that the Google updater runs as a scheduled task so I wanted to obtain the binaries executed via scheduled tasks as well.
I executed the following to get a rough sense of where Chrome files were installed:

(Get-Process -Name *Chrome*).Modules.FileName | Sort-Object -Unique

(Get-ScheduledTask -TaskName *Google*).Actions.Execute | Sort-Object -Unique


To my surprise and satisfaction, Google manages to house nearly all of its binaries in C:\Program Files (x86)\Google. This allows for a great starting point for building Chrome whitelist rules.

Next, I had to ask myself the following:
  1. Am I okay with whitelisting anything signed by Google?
  2. Do I only want to whitelist Chrome? i.e. All Chrome-related EXEs and all DLLs they rely upon.
  3. I will probably want want Chrome to be able to update itself without Device Guard getting in the way, right?
While I like the idea of whitelisting just Chrome, there are going to be some potential pitfalls. By whitelisting just Chrome, I would need to be aware of every EXE and DLL that Chrome requires to function. I can certainly do that but it would be a relatively work-intensive effort. With that list, I would then create whitelist rules using the FilePublisher file rule level. This would be great initially and it would potentially be the most restrictive strategy while allowing Chrome to update itself. The issue is that what happens when Google decides to include one or more additional DLLs in the software installation? Device Guard will block them and I will be forced to update my policy again. I'm all about applying a paranoid mindset to my policy but at the end of the day, I need to get work done other than constantly updating CI policies.

So the whitelist strategy I choose in this instance is to allow code signed by Google and to allow Chrome to update itself. This strategy equates to using the "Publisher" file rule level - "a combination of the PcaCertificate level (typically one certificate below the root) and the common name (CN) of the leaf certificate. This rule level allows organizations to trust a certificate from a major CA (such as Symantec), but only if the leaf certificate is from a specific company (such as Intel, for device drivers)."

I like the "Publisher" file rule level because it offers the most flexibility, longevity for a specific vendor's code signing certificate. If you look at the certificate chain for chrome.exe, you will see that the issuing PCA (i.e. the issuer above the leaf certificate) is Symantec. Obviously, we wouldn't want to whitelist all code signed by certs issued by Symantec but I'm okay allowing code signed by Google who received their certificate from Symantec.

Certificate chain for chrome.exe
So now I'm ready to create the first draft of my code integrity rules for Chrome.

I always start by creating a FilePublisher rule set for the binaries I want to whitelist because it allows me to associate what binaries are tied to their respective certificates.

$GooglePEs = Get-SystemDriver -ScanPath 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Google' -UserPEs

New-CIPolicy -FilePath Google_FilePub.xml -DriverFiles $GooglePEs -Level FilePublisher -UserPEs


What resulted was the following ruleset. Everything looked fine except for a single Microsoft rule generated which was associated with d3dcompiler_47.dll. I looked in my master rule policy and I already had this rule. Me being obsessive compulsive wanted a pristine ruleset including only Google rules. This is good practice anyway once you get in the habit of managing large whitelist rulesets. You'll want to keep separate policy XMLs for each whitelisting scenario you run into and then merge accordingly. After removing the MS binary from the list, what resulted was a much cleaner ruleset (Publisher applied this time) consisting of only two signer rules.

$OnlyGooglePEs = $GooglePEs | ? { -not $_.FriendlyName.EndsWith('d3dcompiler_47.dll') }

New-CIPolicy -FilePath Google_Publisher.xml -DriverFiles $OnlyGooglePEs -Level Publisher -UserPEs


So now, all I should need to do is merge the new rules into my master ruleset, redeploy, reboot, and if all works well, Chrome should install and execute without issue.

$MasterRuleXml = 'FinalPolicy.xml'

$ChromeRules = New-CIPolicyRule -DriverFiles $OnlyGooglePEs -Level Publisher

Merge-CIPolicy -OutputFilePath FinalPolicy_Merged.xml -PolicyPaths $MasterRuleXml -Rules $ChromeRules

ConvertFrom-CIPolicy -XmlFilePath .\FinalPolicy_Merged.xml -BinaryFilePath SIPolicy.p7b

# Finally, on the Device Guard system, replace the existing

# SIPolicy.p7b with the one that was just generated and reboot.


One thing I neglected to account for was the initial Chrome installer binary. I could have incorporated the binary into this process but I wanted to try my luck that Google used the same certificates to sign the installer binary. To my luck, they did and everything installed and executed perfectly. I would consider myself lucky in this case because I selected a software publisher (Google) who employs decent code signing practices.

Conclusion

In future blog posts, I will document my experiences deploying software that doesn't adhere to proper signing practices or doesn't even sign their code. Hopefully, the Google Chrome case study will, at a minimum, ease you into the process of updating code integrity policies for new software deployments.

The bottom line is that this isn't an easy process. Are there ways in which Microsoft could improve the code integrity policy generation/update/deployment/auditing experience? Absolutely! Even if they did though, the responsibility ultimately lies on you to make informed decisions about what software you trust and how you choose to enforce that trust!

PowerShell is Not Special - An Offensive PowerShell Retrospective

5 January 2017 at 23:35
“PowerShell is not special.”

During Jared Haight’s excellent DerbyCon presentation, he uttered this blasphemous sentence. As someone who has invested the last five years of his life learning and mastering PowerShell, at a surface level, it was easy to dismiss such a claim. However, I’ve done a lot of introspection about my investment in offensive PowerShell and the more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that PowerShell really isn’t that special! Before you bring out the torches and pitchforks, allow me apply context.

My first exposure to PowerShell was from Dave Kennedy and Josh Kelley during their DEF CON presentation – PowerShell OMFG. Initially, I considered PowerShell to be amusing from a security perspective. I was just getting my start in infosec, however, and I had a lot of other things that I needed to focus on. Not long after that talk, Chris Campbell (@obscuresec) then took a keen interest in PowerShell and heavily advocated that we start using it on our team. My obsession for PowerShell wasn’t solidified until I realized that it could be used as a shellcode runner. When I realized that there really wasn’t anything PowerShell couldn’t do, my interest in and promotion of offensive PowerShell was truly realized.

For years, I did my part in developing unique offensive capabilities in PowerShell to the approval of many in the community and to the disappointment of defenders and employees of Microsoft. At the time, their disappointment and frustration was justified to an extent. When I started writing offensive PowerShell code, v3 hadn’t been released so the level of detection was laughable. Fast forward to now – PowerShell v5 (which is available downlevel to Windows 7). I challenge anyone to identify a single language – scripting, interpreted, compiled, or otherwise that has better logging than PowerShell v5. Additionally, if defenders choose to employ whitelisting to enforce trusted PowerShell code, both AppLocker and Device Guard do what many still (mistakenly) believe the execution policy was intended to do – actually perform signature enforcement of PowerShell code.

While PowerShell has become extremely popular amongst pentesters, red-teamer, criminals, and state-sponsored actors, let’s not forget that we’re still getting compromised by compiled payloads every... freaking... day. PowerShell really is just a means to an end in achieving an attacker’s objective - now at the cost of generating significant noise with the logging offered by PowerShell v5. PowerShell obviously offers many distinct advantages for attackers that I highlighted years ago but defenders and security vendors are slowly but surely catching up with detecting PowerShell attacks. Additionally, with the introduction of AMSI, for all of its flaws, we now have AV engines that can scan arbitrary buffers in memory.

So in the context of offense, this is why I say that PowerShell really isn’t special. Defenders truly are armed with the tools they need to detect and mitigate against PowerShell attacks. So the next time you find yourself worrying about PowerShell attacks, make sure you’re worrying equally, if not more about every other kind of payload that could execute on your system. Don’t be naïve, however, and write PowerShell off as a “solved problem.” There will always continue to be innovative bypass/evasion research in the PowerShell space. Let’s continue to bring this to the public’s attention and the community will continue to benefit from the fruits of offensive and defensive research.

References for securing/monitoring PowerShell:

Bypassing Device Guard with .NET Assembly Compilation Methods

10 July 2017 at 11:08
Tl;dr

This post will describe a Device Guard user mode code integrity (UMCI) bypass (or any other application whitelisting solution for that matter) that takes advantage of the fact the code integrity checks are not performed on any code that compiles C# dynamically with csc.exe. This issue was reported to Microsoft on November 14, 2016. Despite all other Device Guard bypasses being serviced, a decision was made to not service this bypass. This bypass can be mitigated by blocking csc.exe but that may not be realistic in your environment considering the frequency in which legitimate code makes use of these methods - e.g. msbuild.exe and many PowerShell modules that call Add-Type.

Introduction

When Device Guard enforces user mode code integrity (UMCI), aside from blocking non-whitelisted binaries, it also only permits the execution of signed scripts (PowerShell and WSH) approved per policy. The UMCI enforcement mechanism in PowerShell is constrained language mode. One of the features of constrained language mode is that unsigned/unapproved scripts are prevented from calling Add-Type as this would permit arbitrary code execution via the compilation and loading of supplied C#. Scripts that are approved per Device Guard code integrity (CI) policy, however, are under no such restrictions, execute in full language mode, and are permitted to call Add-Type. While investigating Device Guard bypasses, I considered targeting legitimate, approved calls to Add-Type. I knew that the act of calling Add-Type caused csc.exe – the C# compiler to drop a .cs file to %TEMP%, compile it, and load it. A procmon trace of PowerShell calling Add-Type confirms this:

Process Name Operation  Path

------------ ---------  ----

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\bfuswtq5.cmdline

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\bfuswtq5.0.cs

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\CSC3FBE068FE0A4C00B4A74B718FAE2E57.TMP

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\CSC3FBE068FE0A4C00B4A74B718FAE2E57.TMP

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\RES1A69.tmp

cvtres.exe   CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\CSC3FBE068FE0A4C00B4A74B718FAE2E57.TMP

cvtres.exe   CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\RES1A69.tmp

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\RES1A69.tmp

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\RES1A69.tmp

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\bfuswtq5.dll

csc.exe      CreateFile C:\Users\TestUser\AppData\Local\Temp\CSC3FBE068FE0A4C00B4A74B718FAE2E57.TMP


Upon seeing these files created, I asked myself the following questions:
  1. Considering an approved (i.e. whitelisted per policy) PowerShell function is permitted to call Add-Type (as many Microsoft-signed module functions do), could I possibly replace the dropped .cs file with my own? Could I do so quickly enough to win that race?
  2. How is the .DLL that’s created loaded? Is it subject to code integrity (CI) checks?

Research methodology
Let’s start with the second question since exploitation would be impossible if CI would prevent the loading of a hijacked, unsigned DLL. To answer this question, I needed to determine what .NET methods were called upon Add-Type being called. This determination was relatively easy by tracing method calls in dnSpy. I quickly traced execution of the following .NET methods:
Once the Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeGenerator.Compile method is called, this is where csc.exe is ultimately invoked. After the Compile method returns, FromFileBatch takes the compiled artifacts, reads them in as a byte array, and then loads them using System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(byte[], byte[], Evidence). This is the same method called by msbuild.exe when compiling inline tasks – a known Device Guard UMCI bypassed discovered by Casey Smith. Knowing this, I gained the confidence that if I could hijack the dropped .cs file, I would end up having a constrained language mode bypass, allowing arbitrary unsigned code execution. What we’re referring to here is known as a “time of check time of use” (TOCTOU) attack. If I could manage to replace the dropped .cs file with my own prior to csc.exe consuming it, then I would win that race and perform the bypass. The only constraints imposed on me, however, would be that I would need to write a hijack payload within the constraints of constrained language mode. As it turns out, I was successful.

Exploitation

I wrote a function called Add-TypeRaceCondition that will accept attacker-supplied C# and get an allowed call to Add-Type to compile it and load it within the constraints of constrained language mode. The weaponized bypass is roughly broken down as follows:
  1. Spawn a child process of PowerShell that constantly tries to drop the malicious .cs file to %TEMP%.
  2. Maximize the process priority of the child PowerShell process to increase the likelihood of winning the race.
  3. In the parent PowerShell process, import a Microsoft-signed PowerShell module that calls Add-Type – I chose the PSDiagnostics process for this.
  4. Kill the child PowerShell process.
  5. At this point, you will have likely won the race and your type will be loaded in place of the legitimate one expected by PSDiagnostics.
In reality, the payload wins the race a little more than 50% of the time. If Add-TypeRaceCondition doesn’t work on the first try, it will almost always work on the second try.

Do note that while I weaponized this bypass for PowerShell, this can be weaponized using anything that would allow you to overwrite the dropped .cs file quickly enough. I've weaponized the bypass using a batch script, VBScript, and with WMI. I'll leave it up to the reader to implement a bypass using their language of choice.

Operational Considerations

It's worth noting that while an application whitelisting bypass is just that, it also serves as a method of code execution that is likely to evade defenses. In this bypass, an attacker need only drop a C# file to disk which results in the temporary creation of a DLL on disk which is quickly deleted. Depending upon the payload used, some anti-virus solutions with real-time scanning enabled could potentially have the ability to quarantine the dropped DLL before it's consumed by System.Reflection.Assembly.Load.

Prevention

Let me first emphasize that this is a .NET issue, not a PowerShell issue. PowerShell was simply chosen as a convenient means to weaponize the bypass. As I’ve already stated, this issue doesn’t just apply to when PowerShell calls Add-Type, but when any application calls any of the CodeDomProvider.CompileAssemblyFrom methods. Researchers will continue to target signed applications that make such method calls until this issue is mitigated.

A possible user mitigation for this bypass would be to block csc.exe with a Device Guard rule. I would personally advise against this, however, since there are many legitimate Add-Type calls in PowerShell and presumably in other legitimate applications. I’ve provided a sample Device Guard CI rule that you can merge into your policy if you like though. I created the rule with the following code:

# Copy csc.exe into the following directory

# csc.exe should be the only file in this directory.

$CSCTestPath = '.\Desktop\ToBlock\'

$PEInfo = Get-SystemDriver -ScanPath $CSCTestPath -UserPEs -NoShadowCopy


$DenyRule = New-CIPolicyRule -Level FileName -DriverFiles $PEInfo -Deny

$DenyRule[0].SetAttribute('MinimumFileVersion', '65535.65535.65535.65535')


$CIArgs = @{

    FilePath = "$($CSCTestPath)block_csc.xml"

    Rules = $DenyRule

    UserPEs = $True

}


New-CIPolicy @CIArgs


Detection

Unfortunately, detection using free, off-the-shelf tools will be difficult due to the fact that the disk artifacts are created and subsequently deleted and by the nature of System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(byte[]) not generating a traditional module load event that something like Sysmon would be able to detect.

Vendors with the ability to hash files on the spot should consider assessing the prevalence of DLLs created by csc.exe. Files with low prevalence should be treated as suspicious. Also, unfortunately, since dynamically created DLLs by their nature will not be signed, there will be no code signing heuristics to key off of.

It's worth noting that I intentionally didn't mention PowerShell v5 ScriptBlock logging as a detection option since PowerShell isn't actually required to achieve this bypass.

Conclusion

I remain optimistic of Device Guard’s ability to enforce user mode code integrity. It is a difficult problem to tackle, however, and there is plenty of attack surface. In most cases, Device Guard UMCI bypasses can be mitigated by a user in the form of CI blacklist rules. Unfortunately, in my opinion, no realistic user mitigation of this particular bypass is possible. Microsoft not servicing such a bypass is the exception and not the norm. Please don’t let this discourage you from reporting any bypasses that you may find to [email protected]. It is my hope that by releasing this bypass that it will eventually be addressed and it will provide other vendors with the opportunity to mitigate.

Previously serviced bypasses for reference:

Application of Authenticode Signatures to Unsigned Code

28 August 2017 at 12:31
Attackers have been known to apply legitimate digital certificates to their malware, presumably, to evade basic signature validation utilities. This was the case with the Petya ransomware. As a reverse engineer or red team capability developer, it is important to know the methods in which legitimate signatures can be applied to otherwise unsigned, attacker-supplied code. This blog post will give some background on code signing mechanisms, digital signature binary formats, and finally, techniques describing the application of digital certificates to an unsigned PE file. Soon, you will also see why these techniques are even more relevant in research that I will be releasing next month.

Background


What does it mean for a PE file (exe, dll, sys, etc.) to be signed? The simple answer to many is to open up the file properties on a PE and if a “Digital Signatures” tab is present, it means it was signed. When you see that the “Digital Signatures” tab is present on a file, it actually means that the PE file was Authenticode signed, which means within the file itself there is a binary blob of data consisting of a certificate and a signed hash of the file (more specifically, the Authenticode hash which doesn’t consider certain parts of the PE header in the hash calculation). The format in which an Authenticode signature is stored is documented in the PE Authenticode specification.


Many files that one would expect to be signed, however, (for example, consider notepad.exe) do not have a “Digital Signatures” tab. Does this mean that the file isn’t signed and that Microsoft is actually shipping unsigned code? Well, it depends. While notepad.exe does not have an Authenticode signature embedded within itself, in reality, it was signed via another means - catalog signing. Windows contains a catalog store consisting of many catalog files that are basically just a list of Authenticode hashes. Each catalog file is then signed to attest that any files with matching hashes originated from the signer of the catalog file (which is Microsoft in almost all cases). So while the Explorer UI does not attempt to lookup catalog signatures, pretty much any other signature verification tool will perform catalog lookups - e.g. Get-AuthenticodeSignature in PowerShell and Sysinternals Sigcheck.

Note: The catalog file store is located in %windir%\System32\CatRoot\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}



In the above screenshot, the SignatureType property indicates that notepad.exe is catalog signed. What is also worth noting is the IsOSBinary property. While the implementation is not documented, this will show “True” if a signature chains to one of several known, hashed Microsoft root certificates. Those interested in learning more about how this works should reverse the CertVerifyCertificateChainPolicy function.

Sigcheck with the “-i” switch will perform catalog certificate validation and also display the catalog file path that contains the matching Authenticode hash. The “-h” switch will also calculate and display the SHA1 and SHA256 Authenticode hashes of the PE file (PESHA1 and PE256, respectively):

sigcheck -q -h -i C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe

c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe:

  Verified:       Signed

  Catalog:        C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}\Microsoft-Windows-Client-Features-Package-AutoMerged-shell~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.15063.0.cat

  Signers:

    Microsoft Windows

      Status:         Valid

      Valid Usage:    NT5 Crypto, Code Signing

      Serial Number:  33 00 00 01 06 6E C3 25 C4 31 C9 18 0E 00 00 00 00 01 06

      Thumbprint:     AFDD80C4EBF2F61D3943F18BB566D6AA6F6E5033

      Algorithm:      1.2.840.113549.1.1.11

      Valid from:     1:39 PM 10/11/2016

      Valid to:       1:39 PM 1/11/2018

    Microsoft Windows Production PCA 2011

      Status:         Valid

      Valid Usage:    All

      Serial Number:  61 07 76 56 00 00 00 00 00 08

      Thumbprint:     580A6F4CC4E4B669B9EBDC1B2B3E087B80D0678D

      Algorithm:      1.2.840.113549.1.1.11

      Valid from:     11:41 AM 10/19/2011

      Valid to:       11:51 AM 10/19/2026

    Microsoft Root Certificate Authority 2010

                Status:         Valid

                Valid Usage:    All

                Serial Number:  28 CC 3A 25 BF BA 44 AC 44 9A

                                9B 58 6B 43 39 AA

                Thumbprint:     3B1EFD3A66EA28B16697394703A72CA340A05BD5

                Algorithm:      1.2.840.113549.1.1.11

                Valid from:     2:57 PM 6/23/2010

                Valid to:       3:04 PM 6/23/2035

    Signing date:   1:02 PM 3/18/2017

    Counter Signers:

      Microsoft Time-Stamp Service

        Status:         Valid

        Valid Usage:    Timestamp Signing

        Serial Number:  33 00 00 00 B3 39 BB D4 12 93 15 A9 FE 00 00 00 00 00 B3

        Thumbprint:     BEF9C1F4DA0F153FF0900303BE78A59ADA8ADCB9

        Algorithm:      1.2.840.113549.1.1.11

        Valid from:     10:56 AM 9/7/2016

        Valid to:       10:56 AM 9/7/2018

      Microsoft Time-Stamp PCA 2010

        Status:         Valid

        Valid Usage:    All

        Serial Number:  61 09 81 2A 00 00 00 00 00 02

        Thumbprint:     2AA752FE64C49ABE82913C463529CF10FF2F04EE

        Algorithm:      1.2.840.113549.1.1.11

        Valid from:     2:36 PM 7/1/2010

        Valid to:       2:46 PM 7/1/2025

      Microsoft Root Certificate Authority 2010

        Status:         Valid

        Valid Usage:    All

        Serial Number:  28 CC 3A 25 BF BA 44 AC 44 9A 9B 58 6B 43 39 AA

        Thumbprint:     3B1EFD3A66EA28B16697394703A72CA340A05BD5

        Algorithm:      1.2.840.113549.1.1.11

        Valid from:     2:57 PM 6/23/2010

        Valid to:       3:04 PM 6/23/2035

    Publisher:      Microsoft Windows

    Description:    Notepad

    Product:        Microsoft« Windows« Operating System

    Prod version:   10.0.15063.0

    File version:   10.0.15063.0 (WinBuild.160101.0800)

    MachineType:    64-bit

    MD5:    F60A9D3A9461F68DE0FCCEBB0C6CB31A

    SHA1:   2302BA58181F3C4E1E44A47A7D214EE9397CF2BA

    PESHA1: ACCE8ADCE9DDDE507EAE295DBB37683CA272DB9E

    PE256:  0C67E3923EDA8154A89ADCA8A6BF47DF7C07D40BB41963DEB16ACBCF2E54803E

    SHA256: C84C361B7F5DBAEAC93828E60D2B54704D3E7CA84148BAFDA632F9AD6CDC96FA

    IMP:    645E8D8B0AEA808FF16DAA70D6EE720E


Knowing the Authenticode hash allows you to look up the respective entry in the catalog file. You can double-click a catalog file to view its entries. I also wrote the CatalogTools PowerShell module to parse catalog files. The “hint” metadata field gives away that notepad.exe is indeed the corresponding entry:


Digital Signature Binary Format


Now that you have an understanding of the methods in which a PE file can be signed (Authenticode and catalog), it is useful to have some background on the binary format of signatures. Whether Authenticode signed or catalog signed, both signatures are stored as PKCS #7 signed data which is ASN.1 formatted binary data. ASN.1 is simply a standard that states how binary data of different data types should be stored. Before observing/parsing the bytes of a digital signature, you must first know how it is stored in the file. Catalog files are straightforward as the file itself consists of raw PKCS #7 data. There are online ASN.1 decoders that parse out ASN.1 data and present it in an intuitive fashion. For example, try loading the catalog file containing the hash for notepad.exe into the decoder and you will get a sense of the layout of the data. Here’s a snippet of the parsed output:


Each property within the ASN.1 encoded data begins with an object identifier (OID) - a unique numeric sequence that identifies the type of data that follows. The OIDs worth noting in the above snippet are the following:
  1. 1.2.840.113549.1.7.2 - This indicates that what follows is PKCS #7 signed data - the format expected for Authenticode and catalog-signed code.
  2. 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.12.1.1 - This indicates that what follows is catalog file hash data
It is worth spending time exploring all of the fields contained within a digital signature. All fields present are outside of the scope of this blog post, however. Additional crypto/signature-related OIDs are listed here.

Embedded PE Authenticode Signature Retrieval


The digital signature data in a PE file with an embedded Authenticode signature is appended to the end of the file (in a well-formatted PE file). The OS obviously needs a little bit more information than that though in order to retrieve the exact offset and size of the embedded signature. Let’s look at kernel32.dll in one of my favorite PE parsing/editing utilities: CFF Explorer.


The offset and size of the embedded digital signature is stored in the “security directory” offset within the “data directories” array within the optional header. The data directory contains offsets and size of various structures within the PE file - exports, imports, relocations, etc. All offsets within the data directory are relative virtual offsets (RVA) meaning they are the offset to the respective portion of the PE when loaded in memory. There is one exception though - the security directory which stores its offset as a file offset. The reason for this is because the Windows loader doesn’t actually load the content of the security directory in memory.

The binary data in the at the security directory file offset is a WIN_CERTIFICATE structure. Here’s what the structure for kernel32.dll looks like parsed out in 010 Editor (file offset 0x000A9600):


PE Authenticode signatures should always have a wRevision of WIN_CERT_TYPE_PKCS_SIGNED_DATA. The byte array that follows is the same PKCS #7, ASN.1 encoded signed data as was seen in the contents of a catalog file. The only difference is that you shouldn’t find the 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.12.1.1 OID, indicating the presence of catalog hashes.

Parsing out the raw bCertificate data in the online ASN.1 decoder confirms we’re dealing with proper PKCS #7 data:

Application of Digital Signatures to Unsigned PEs


Now that you have a basic idea of the binary format and storage locations of digital signatures, you can start applying existing signatures to your unsigned code.

Application of Embedded Authenticode Signatures


Applying an embedded Authenticode signature from a signed file to an unsigned PE file is quite straightforward. While the process can obviously be automated, I’m going to explain how to do it manually with a hex editor and CFF Explorer.

Step #1: Identify the Authenticode signature that you want to steal. In this example, I will use the one in kernel32.dll

Step #2: Identify the offset and size of the WIN_CERTIFICATE structure in the “security directory”


So the file offset in the above screenshot is 0x000A9600 and the size is 0x00003A68.

Step #3: Open kernel32.dll in a hex editor, select 0x3A68 bytes starting at offset 0xA9600, and then copy the bytes.


Step #4: Open your unsigned PE (HelloWorld.exe in this example) in a hex editor, scroll to the end, and paste the bytes copied from kernel32.dll. Take note of the file offset of the beginning of the signature (0x00000E00 in my case). Save the file after pasting in the signature.


Step #5: Open HelloWorld.exe in CFF Explorer and update the security directory to point to the digital signature that was applied: offset - 0x00000E00, size - 0x00003A68. Save the file after making the modifications. Ignore the “Invalid” warning. CFF Explorer doesn’t treat the security directory as a file offset and gets confused when it tries to reference what section the data resides in.


That’s it! Now, signature validation utilities will parse and display the signature properly. The only caveat is that they will report that the signature is invalid because the calculated Authenticode of the file does not match that of the signed hash stored in the certificate.

Now, if you were wondering why the SignerCertificate thumbprint values don’t match, then you are an astute reader. Considering we applied the identical signature, why doesn’t the certificate thumbprint match? That’s because Get-AuthenticodeSignature first attempts a catalog file lookup of kernel32.dll. In this case, it found a catalog entry for kernel32.dll and is displaying the signature information for the signer of the catalog file. kernel32.dll is also Authenticode signed though. To validate that the thumbprint values for the Authenticode hashes are identical, temporarily stop the CryptSvc service - the service responsible for performing catalog hash lookups. Now you will see that the thumbprint values match. This indicates that the catalog hash was signed with a different code signing certificate from the certificate used to sign kernel32.dll itself.

Application of a Catalog Signature to a PE File


Realistically, CryptSvc will always be running and catalog lookups will be performed. Suppose you want to be mindful of OPSEC and match the identical certificate used to sign your target binary. It turns out, you can actually apply the contents of a catalog file to an embedded PE signature by swapping out the contents of bCertificate in the WIN_CERTIFICATE structure and updating dwLength accordingly. Feel free to follow along as this is done. Note that our goal (in this case) is to apply an Authenticode signature to our unsigned binary that is identical to the one used to sign the containing catalog file: Certificate thumbprint AFDD80C4EBF2F61D3943F18BB566D6AA6F6E5033 in this case.

Step #1: Identify the catalog file containing the Authenticode hash of the target binary - kernel32.dll in this case. If a file is Authenticode signed, sigcheck will actually fail to resolve the catalog file. Signtool (included in the Windows SDK) will, however.


Step #2: Open the catalog file in in a hex editor and annotate the file size - 0x000137C7


Step #3: We’re going to manually craft a WIN_CERTIFICATE structure in a hex editor. Let’s go through each field we’ll supply:
  1. dwLength: This is the total length of the WIN_CERTIFICATE structure - i.e. bCertificate bytes plus the size of the other fields = 4 (size of DWORD) + 2 (size of WORD) + 2 (size of WORD) + 0x000137C7 (bCertificate - the file size of the .cat file) = 0x000137CF.
  2. wRevision: This will be 0x0200 to indicate WIN_CERT_REVISION_2_0.
  3. wCertificateType: This will be 0x0002 to indicate WIN_CERT_TYPE_PKCS_SIGNED_DATA.
  4. bCertificate: This will consist of the raw bytes of the catalog file.
When crafting the bytes in the hex editor, be mindful that the fields are stored in little-endian format.


Step #4: Copy all the bytes from the crafted WIN_CERTIFICATE, append them your unsigned PE, and update the security directory offset and size accordingly.


Now, assuming your calculations and alignments were proper, behold a thumbprint match with that of the catalog file!


Anomaly Detection Ideas


The techniques presented in this blog post have hopefully got some people thinking about how one might go about detecting the abuse of digital signatures. While I have not investigated signature heuristics thoroughly, let me just pose a series of questions that might motivate others to start investigating and writing detections for potential signature anomalies:
  • For a legitimately signed Microsoft PE, is there any correlation between the PE timestamp and the certificate validity period? Would the PE timestamp for attacker-supplied code deviate from the aforementioned correlation?
  • After reading this article, what is your level of trust in a “signed” file that has a hash mismatch?
  • How would you go about detecting a PE file that has an embedded Authenticode signature consisting of a catalog file? Hint: A specific OID mentioned earlier might be useful.
  • How might you go about validating the signature of a catalog-signed file on a different system?
  • What effect might a stopped/disabled CryptSvc service have on security products performing local signature validation? If that was to occur, then most system files, for all intents and purposes will cease to be signed.
  • Every legitimate PE I’ve seen is padded on a 0x10 byte boundary. The example I showed where I applied the catalog contents to an Authenticode signature is not 0x10 byte aligned.
  • How might you differentiate between a legitimate Microsoft digital signature and one where all the certificate attributes are applied to a self-signed certificate?
  • What if there is data appended beyond the digital signature? This has been abused in the past.
  • Threat intel professionals should find the Authenticode hash to be an interesting data point when investigating identical code with different certificates applied. VirusTotal supplies this as the "Authentihash" value: i.e. the hash value that was calculated with "sigcheck -h". If I were investigating variants of a sample that had more than one hit on a single Authentihash in VirusTotal, I would find that to be very interesting.

Exploiting PowerShell Code Injection Vulnerabilities to Bypass Constrained Language Mode

29 August 2017 at 12:32

Introduction


Constrained language mode is an extremely effective method of preventing arbitrary unsigned code execution in PowerShell. It’s most realistic enforcement scenarios are when Device Guard or AppLocker are in enforcement mode because any script or module that is not approved per policy will be placed in constrained language mode, severely limiting an attackers ability to execute unsigned code. Among the restrictions imposed by constrained language mode is the inability to call Add-Type. Restricting Add-Type makes sense considering it compiles and loads arbitrary C# code into your runspace. PowerShell code that is approved per policy, however, runs in “full language” mode and execution of Add-Type is permitted. It turns out that Microsoft-signed PowerShell code calls Add-Type quite regularly. Don’t believe me? Find out for yourself by running the following command:

ls C:\* -Recurse -Include '*.ps1', '*.psm1' |

  Select-String -Pattern 'Add-Type' |

  Sort Path -Unique |

  % { Get-AuthenticodeSignature -FilePath $_.Path } |

  ? { $_.SignerCertificate.Subject -match 'Microsoft' }


Exploitation


Now, imagine if the following PowerShell module code (pretend it’s called “VulnModule”) were signed by Microsoft:

$Global:Source = @'

public class Test {

    public static string PrintString(string inputString) {

        return inputString;

    }

}

'@


Add-Type -TypeDefinition $Global:Source


Any ideas on how you might influence the input to Add-Type from constrained language mode? Take a minute to think about it before reading on.

Alright, let’s think the process through together:
  1. Add-Type is passed a global variable as its type definition. Because it’s global, its scope is accessible by anyone, including us, the attacker.
  2. The issue though is that the signed code defines the global variable immediately prior to calling to Add-Type so even if we supplied our own malicious C# code, it would just be overwritten by the legitimate code.
  3. Did you know that you can set read-only variables using the Set-Variable cmdlet? Do you know what I’m thinking now?

Weaponization


Okay, so to inject code into Add-Type from constrained language mode, an attacker needs to define their malicious code as a read-only variable, denying the signed code from setting the global “Source” variable. Here’s a weaponized proof of concept:

Set-Variable -Name Source -Scope Global -Option ReadOnly -Value @'

public class Injected {

    public static string ToString(string inputString) {

        return inputString;

    }

}

'@


Import-Module VulnModule


[Injected]::ToString('Injected!!!')


A quick note about weaponization strategies for Add-Type injection flaws. One of the restrictions of constrained language mode is that you cannot call .NET methods on non-whitelisted classes with two exceptions: properties (which is just a special “getter” method) and the ToString method. In the above weaponized PoC, I chose to implement a static ToString method because ToString permits me to pass arguments (a property getter does not). I also made my class static because the .NET class whitelist only applies when instantiating objects with New-Object.

So did the above vulnerable example sound contrived and unrealistic? You would think so but actually Microsoft.PowerShell.ODataAdapter.ps1 within the Microsoft.PowerShell.ODataUtils module was vulnerable to this exact issue. Microsoft fixed this issue in either CVE-2017-0215, CVE-2017-0216, or CVE-2017-0219. I can’t remember, to be honest. Matt Nelson and I reported a bunch of these injection bugs that were serviced by the awesome PowerShell team.

Prevention


The easiest way to prevent this class of injection attack is to supply a single-quoted here-string directly to -TypeDefinition in Add-Type. Single quoted string will not expand any embedded variables or expressions. Of course, this scenario assumes that you are compiling static code. If you must supply dynamically generated code to Add-Type, be exceptionally mindful of how an attacker might influence its input. To get a sense of a subset of ways to influence code execution in PowerShell watch my “Defensive Coding Strategies for a High-Security Environment” talk that I gave at PSConf.EU.

Mitigation


While Microsoft will certainly service these vulnerabilities moving forward, what is to prevent an attacker from bringing the vulnerable version along with them?

A surprisingly effective blacklist rule for UMCI bypass binaries is the FileName rule which will block execution based on the filename present in the OriginalFilename field within the “Version Info” resource in a PE. A PowerShell script is obviously not a PE file though - it’s a text file so the FileName rule won’t apply. Instead, you are forced to block the vulnerable script by its file hash using a Hash rule. Okay… what if there is more than a single vulnerable version of the same script? You’ve only blocked a single hash thus far. Are you starting to see the problem? In order to effectively block all previous vulnerable versions of the script, you must know all hashes of all vulnerable versions. Microsoft certainly recognizes that problem and has made a best effort (considering they are the ones with the resources) to scan all previous Windows releases for vulnerable scripts and collect the hashes and incorporate them into a blacklist here. Considering the challenges involved in blocking all versions of all vulnerable scripts by their hash, it is certainly possible that some might fall through the cracks. This is why it is still imperative to only permit execution of PowerShell version 5 and to enable scriptblock logging. Lee Holmes has an excellent post on how to effectively block older versions of PowerShell in his blog post here.

Another way in which a defender might get lucky regarding vulnerable PowerShell script blocking is due to the fact that most scripts and binaries on the system are catalog signed versus Authenticode signed. Catalog signed means that rather than the script having an embedded Authenticode signature, its hash is stored in a catalog file that is signed by Microsoft. So when Microsoft ships updates, eventually, hashes for old versions will fall out and no longer remain “signed.” Now, an attacker could presumably also bring an old, signed catalog file with them and insert it into the catalog store. You would have to be elevated to perform that action though and by that point, there are a multitude of other ways to bypass Device Guard UMCI. As a researcher seeking out such vulnerable scripts, it is ideal to first seek out potentially vulnerable scripts that have an embedded Authenticode signature as indicated by the presence of the following string - “SIG # Begin signature block”. Such bypass scripts exist. Just ask Matt Nelson.

Reporting


If you find a bypass, report it to [email protected] and earn yourself a CVE. The PowerShell team actively addresses injection flaws, but they are also taking making proactive steps to mitigate many of the primitives used to influence code execution in these classes of bug.

Conclusion


While constrained language mode remains an extremely effective means of preventing unsigned code execution, PowerShell and it’s library of signed modules/scripts remain to be a large attack surface. I encourage everyone to seek out more injection vulns, report them, earn credit via formal MSRC acknowledgements, and make the PowerShell ecosystem a more secure place. And hopefully, as a writer of PowerShell code, you’ll find yourself thinking more often about how an attacker might be able to influence the execution of your code.

Now, everything that I just explained is great but it turns out that any call to Add-Type remains vulnerable to injection due to a design issue that permits exploiting a race condition. I really hope that continuing to shed light on these issues, Microsoft will considering addressing this fundamental issue.

Device Guard and Application Whitelisting on Windows - An Airing of Grievances

4 June 2018 at 11:41

Introduction

The purpose of this post is to highlight many of the frustrations I’ve had with Device Guard (rebranded as Windows Defender Application Control) and to discuss why I think it is not an ideal solution for most enterprise scenarios at scale. I’ve spent several years now at this point promoting its use, making it as approachable as possible for people to adopt but from my perspective, I’m not seeing it being openly embraced either within the greater community or by Microsoft (from a public evangelism perspective). Why is that? Hopefully, by calling out the negative experiences I’ve had with it, we might be able to shed a light on what improvements can be made, whether or not further investments should be made in Device Guard, or if application whitelisting is even really feasible in Windows (in its current architecture) for the majority of customer use cases.

In an attempt to prove that I’m not just here to complain for the sake of complaining, here is a non-exhaustive list of blog posts and conference presentations I’ve given promoting Device Guard as a solution:

  • Introduction to Windows Device Guard: Introduction and Configuration Strategy
  • Using Device Guard to Mitigate Against Device Guard Bypasses
  • Windows Device Guard Code Integrity Policy Reference
  • Device Guard Code Integrity Policy Auditing Methodology
  • On the Effectiveness of Device Guard User Mode Code Integrity
  • Code Integrity on Nano Server: Tips/Gotchas
  • Updating Device Guard Code Integrity Policies
  • Adventures in Extremely Strict Device Guard Policy Configuration Part 1 — Device Drivers
  • The EMET Attack Surface Reduction Replacement in Windows 10 RS3: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
  • BlueHat Israel (presented with Casey Smith) - Device Guard Attack Surface, Bypasses, and Mitigations
  • PowerShell Conference EU - Architecting a Modern Defense using Device Guard and PowerShell

  • For me, the appeal of Device Guard (and application whitelisting in general) was and remains as follows: Every… single… malware report I read whether its vanilla crimeware, red team/pentester tools, or nation-state malware has at least one component of their attack chain that would have been blocked and subsequently logged with a robust application whitelisting policy enforced. The idea that a technology could not only prevent, but also supply indications and warnings of well-funded nation-state attacks is extremely enticing. In practice however, at scale (and even on single systems to a lesser extent), both the implementation of Device Guard and the overall ability of the OS to enforce code integrity (particularly in user mode) begin to fall apart.

    The Airing of Grievances



    Based on my extensive experience working with Device Guard (which includes regularly subverting it), here is what I see as its shortcomings:

    • An application whitelisting solution that does not supply the ability to create temporary exemptions is unlikely to be a viable solution in the enterprise. This point becomes clear when you consider the following scenario: A new, prospective or current client asks you to join their teleconferencing solution with 30 minutes notice. Telling them that you cannot join because your enforced security solution won’t permit it is simply an unacceptable answer. Some 3rd party whitelisting solutions do permit temporary, quick exceptions to policy and audit accordingly. As a Device Guard expert myself, even if every component of a software package is consistently signed using the same code signing certificate (which is extremely rare), even I wouldn’t be able to build signer rules, update an existing policy, and deploy it in time for the client conference call.
    • Device Guard is not designed to be placed into audit mode for the purposes of supplementing your existing detections. I recently completed a draft blog post where I was going to highlight the benefits of using Device Guard as an extremely simple and effective means to supplement existing detections. After writing the post however, I discovered that it will only log the loading of an image that would have otherwise been blocked once per boot. This is unacceptable from a threat detection perspective because it would introduce a huge visibility gap. I can only assume that Device Guard in audit mode was only ever designed to facilitate the creation of an enforcement policy.
    • The only interface to the creation and maintenance of Device Guard code integrity policies is the ConfigCI PowerShell module which only works on Windows 10 Enterprise. As not only a PowerShell MVP and a Device Guard expert, I shamefully still struggle with using this very poorly designed module. If I still struggle with using the module, this doesn’t bode well for non-PowerShell and Device Guard experts.
    • Feel free to highlight precisely why I’m wrong with supporting evidence but I sense I’m one of the few people outside of Microsoft or even inside Microsoft who have supplied documentation on practical use cases for configuring and deploying Device Guard. The utter absence of others within Microsoft or the community embracing Device Guard at least supplies me with indirect evidence that it not a realistic preventative solution at scale. I’ll further note that I don’t feel that Device Guard was ever designed from the beginning as an enterprise security solution. It has the feel that it simply evolved as an extension of Secure Boot policy from the Windows RT era.
    • While the servicing efforts for PowerShell constrained language mode have been mostly phenomenal, the servicing of other Device Guard bypasses has been inconsistent at best. For example, this generic bypass still has yet to be fixed. There is an undocumented “Enabled:Dynamic Code Security” policy rule option that is designed to address that bypass (which is great that it's finally being address) but it suffers from a bug that prevents it from working as of Win 10 1803 (it fails to validate the trust of the emitted binary because it forgets to actually mark it as trusted). Additionally, Casey Smith’s “SquiblyTwo” bypass was never serviced, opening the door for additional XSL-based bypasses (which I can confirm exist but I can’t talk about at the time of this writing). Rather, it is just recommended that you blacklist wmic.exe. There is also no robust method to block script-based bypasses.
    • The strategy with maintaining AppLocker moving forward remains ambiguous. AppLocker still benefits to this day by its ability to apply rulesets to user and groups, unlike Device Guard. It also has a slightly better PowerShell module and a GUI.
    • Any new features in Device Guard are consistently not documented aside from me occasionally diffing code integrity policy schemas across Windows builds. For example, one of the biggest recent feature additions is the “Enabled:Intelligent Security Graph Authorization” policy rule option which is the feature that actually transformed Device Guard from a pure whitelisting solution to that of an application control solution, yet, it has only a single line mentioning the feature in the documentation.
    • As far as application whitelisting on Windows is concerned, from a user-mode enforcement perspective, staying on top of blocking new, non-PE based code execution vectors remains an intractable problem. Whether it’s the introduction of code execution vectors (e.g. Windows Subsystem for Linux) or old code execution techniques being rediscovered (e.g. the fact that you can embed arbitrary WSH scripts in XSL docs). People like myself, Casey Smith, Matt Nelson, and many others in the industry recognize the inability of vendors and those implementing application whitelisting solutions to keep pace with blocking/detecting signed applications that permit the execution of arbitrary, unsigned code which fundamentally subvert user mode code integrity (UMCI). This is precisely what motivates us to continue our research in identifying those target applications/scripts.

    So what is Device Guard good for then?


    What I still love about Device Guard is that it’s the only solution that allows you to apply policy to kernel images (even in the very early boot phase). Regardless of the application whitelisting solution, user mode policy configuration, deployment, and maintenance is really difficult. The appeal of driver enforcement is that Windows requires that all drivers be signed, meaning, the creation of signer rules is relatively straightforward and the set of required drivers is far smaller than the set of required user mode code.

    Aside from that, I honestly see very little benefit in using Device Guard for user-mode enforcement or detection aside from using it on systems with extremely consistent hardware and software configurations - e.g. point of sale, ATMs, medical devices, etc.

    For the record, I still use Device Guard to enforce kernel and user mode rules on my personal computers. I still cringe, however, any time I have to make updates to my policy, particularly, for software that isn’t signed or is inconsistently signed.

    Are you admitting that you wasted the past few years dedicating much of your research time to Device Guard?


    Absolutely not!!! I try my best to invest in new security technologies as a motivation to research new abuse and subversion opportunities and Device Guard was no exception. It motivated me to take a deep dive into code signing and signature enforcement which resulted in me learning about and abusing all the internals of subject interface packages and trust providers. It also motivated me to identify and report countless Device Guard and PowerShell Constrained Language Mode bypasses all of which not only bypass application whitelisting solutions but represent attacker tradecraft that subvert many AV/EDR solutions.

    I also personally have a hard time blindly accepting the opinions of others (even those who are established, respected experts in their respective domains) without personally assessing the efficacy and limitations of a security solution myself. As a result of all my Device Guard research, I now have a very good sense of what does work and what doesn’t work in an application whitelisting solution. I am very grateful for the opportunity that Device Guard presented to motivate me to learn so much more about code signing validation.

    What I’m hopeful for in the future


    While I don’t see a lot of investment behind Device Guard compared to other security technologies (like Defender and Advanced Threat Protection), I sense that Microsoft is throwing a lot of their weight behind Windows Defender System Guard runtime attestation, some of the details of which are slowly starting to surface which I’m really excited about assuming the attestation rule engine is extended to 3rd parties. This tweet from Dave Weston I can only assume highlights System Guard in action blocking semi-legitimate signed drivers whereas a relatively simple Device Guard policy would have implicitly blocked those drivers.

    Conclusion


    My intent is certainly not to dissuade people from assessing the feasibility of Device Guard in your respective environment. Rather, I want to be as open and transparent about the issues I’ve encountered over the years working with it. My hope is to ignite an open and honest conversation about how application whitelisting in Windows can be improved or if it’s even a worthwhile investment in the first place.

    As a final note, I want to encourage everyone to dive as deep as you can into technology you’re interested in. There are a lot (I can’t emphasize “a lot” enough) of curmudgeons and detractors who will tell you that you’re wasting your time. Don’t listen to them. Only you (and trusted mentors) should dictate the path of your curiosity! I may no longer be the zealous proponent of application whitelisting that I used to be but I could not be more grateful for the incredible technology Microsoft gave me the opportunity to dive into, upon which, I was able to draw my own conclusions.

    Simple CIL Opcode Execution in PowerShell using the DynamicMethod Class and Delegates

    2 October 2013 at 00:09
    tl:dr version

    It is possible to assemble .NET methods with CIL opcodes (i.e. .NET bytecode) in PowerShell in only a few lines of code using dynamic methods and delegates.



    I’ll admit, I have a love/hate relationship with PowerShell. I love that it is the most powerful scripting language and shell but at the same time, I often find quirks in the language that consistently bother me. One such quirk is the fact that integers don’t wrap when they overflow. Rather, they saturate – they are cast into the next largest type that can accommodate them. To demonstrate what I mean, observe the following:


    You’ll notice that [Int16]::MaxValue (i.e. 0x7FFF) understandably remains an Int16. However, rather than wrapping when adding one, it is upcast to an Int32. Admittedly, this is probably the behavior that most PowerShell users would desire. I, on the other hand wish I had the option to perform math on integers that wrapped. To solve this, I originally thought that I would have to write an addition function using complicated binary logic. I opted not to go that route and decided to assemble a function using raw CIL (common intermediate language) opcodes. What follows is a brief explanation of how to accomplish this task.


    Common Intermediate Language Basics

    CIL is the bytecode that describes .NET methods. A description of all the opcodes implemented by Microsoft can be found here. Every time you call a method in .NET, the runtime either interprets its opcodes or it executes the assembly language equivalent of those opcodes (as a result of the JIT process - just-in-time compilation). The calling convention for CIL is loosely related to how calls are made in X86 assembly – arguments are pushed onto a stack, a method is called, and a return value is returned to the caller.

    Since we’re on the subject of addition, here are the CIL opcodes that would add two numbers of similar type together and would wrap in the case of an overflow:

    IL_0000: Ldarg_0 // Loads the argument at index 0 onto the evaluation stack.
    IL_0001: Ldarg_1 // Loads the argument at index 1 onto the evaluation stack.
    IL_0002: Add // Adds two values and pushes the result onto the evaluation stack.
    IL_0003: Ret // Returns from the current method, pushing a return value (if present) from the callee's evaluation stack onto the caller's evaluation stack.

    Per Microsoft documentation, “integer addition wraps, rather than saturates” when using the Add instruction. This is the behavior I was after in the first place. Now let’s learn how to build a method in PowerShell that uses these opcodes.


    Dynamic Methods

    In the System.Reflection.Emit namespace, there is a DynamicMethod class that allows you to create methods without having to first go through the steps of creating an assembly and module. This is nice when you want a quick and dirty way to assemble and execute CIL opcodes. When creating a DynamicMethod object, you will need to provide the following arguments to its constructor:

    1) The name of the method you want to create
    2) The return type of the method
    3) An array of types that will serve as the parameters

    The following PowerShell command will satisfy those requirements for an addition function:

    $MethodInfo = New-Object Reflection.Emit.DynamicMethod('UInt32Add', [UInt32], @([UInt32], [UInt32]))

    Here, I am creating an empty method that will take two UInt32 variables as arguments and return a UInt32.

    Next, I will actually implement the logic of the method my emitting the CIL opcodes into the method:

    $ILGen = $MethodInfo.GetILGenerator()
    $ILGen.Emit([Reflection.Emit.OpCodes]::Ldarg_0)
    $ILGen.Emit([Reflection.Emit.OpCodes]::Ldarg_1)
    $ILGen.Emit([Reflection.Emit.OpCodes]::Add)
    $ILGen.Emit([Reflection.Emit.OpCodes]::Ret)

    Now that the logic of the method is complete, I need to create a delegate from the $MethodInfo object. Before this can happen, I need to create a delegate in PowerShell that matches the method signature for the UInt32Add method. This can be accomplished by creating a generic Func delegate with the following convoluted syntax:

    $Delegate = [Func``3[UInt32, UInt32, UInt32]]

    The previous command states that I want to create a delegate for a function that accepts two UInt32 arguments and returns a UInt32. Note that the Func delegate wasn't introduced until .NET 3.5 which means that this technique will only work in PowerShell 3+. With that, we can now bind the method to the delegate:

    $UInt32Add = $MethodInfo.CreateDelegate($Delegate)

    And now, all we have to do is call the Invoke method to perform normal integer math that wraps upon an overflow:

    $UInt32Add.Invoke([UInt32]::MaxValue, 2)

    Here is the code in its entirety:


    For additional information regarding the techniques I described, I encourage you to read the following articles:

    Introduction to IL Assembly Language
    Reflection Emit Dynamic Method Scenarios
    How to: Define and Execute Dynamic Methods

    Reverse Engineering InternalCall Methods in .NET

    16 November 2013 at 19:52
    Often times, when attempting to reverse engineer a particular .NET method, I will hit a wall because I’ll dig in far enough into the method’s implementation that I’ll reach a private method marked [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.InternalCall)]. For example, I was interested in seeing how the .NET framework loads PE files in memory via a byte array using the System.Reflection.Assembly.Load(Byte[]) method. When viewed in ILSpy (my favorite .NET decompiler), it will show the following implementation:
     
     
    So the first thing it does is check to see if you’re allowed to load a PE image in the first place via the CheckLoadByteArraySupported method. Basically, if the executing assembly is a tile app, then you will not be allowed to load a PE file as a byte array. It then calls the RuntimeAssembly.nLoadImage method. If you click on this method in ILSpy, you will be disappointed to find that there does not appear to be a managed implementation.
     
     
    As you can see, all you get is a method signature and an InternalCall property. To begin to understand how we might be able reverse engineer this method, we need to know the definition of InternalCall. According to MSDN documentation, InternalCall refers to a method call that “is internal, that is, it calls a method that is implemented within the common language runtime.” So it would seem likely that this method is implemented as a native function in clr.dll. To validate my assumption, let’s use Windbg with sos.dll – the managed code debugger extension. My goal using Windbg will be to determine the native pointer for the nLoadImage method and see if it jumps to its respective native function in clr.dll. I will attach Windbg to PowerShell since PowerShell will make it easy to get the information needed by the SOS debugger extension. The first thing I need to do is get the metadata token for the nLoadImage method. This will be used in Windbg to resolve the method.
     
     
    As you can see, the Get-ILDisassembly function in PowerSploit conveniently provides the metadata token for the nLoadImage method. Now on to Windbg for further analysis…
     
     
    The following commands were executed:
     
    1) .loadby sos clr
     
    Load the SOS debugging extension from the directory that clr.dll is loaded from
     
    2) !Token2EE mscorlib.dll 0x0600278C
     
    Retrieves the MethodDesc of the nLoadImage method. The first argument (mscorlib.dll) is the module that implements the nLoadImage method and the hex number is the metadata token retrieved from PowerShell.
     
    3) !DumpMD 0x634381b0
     
    I then dump information about the MethodDesc. This will give the address of the method table for the object that implements nLoadImage
     
    4) !DumpMT -MD 0x636e42fc
     
    This will dump all of the methods for the System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly class with their respective native entry point. nLoadImage has the following entry:
     
    635910a0 634381b0   NONE System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly.nLoadImage(Byte[], Byte[], System.Security.Policy.Evidence, System.Threading.StackCrawlMark ByRef, Boolean, System.Security.SecurityContextSource)
     
    So the native address for nLoadImage is 0x635910a0. Now, set a breakpoint on that address, let the program continue execution and use PowerShell to call the Load method on a bogus PE byte array.
     
    PS C:\> [Reflection.Assembly]::Load(([Byte[]]@(1,2,3)))
     
    You’ll then hit your breakpoint in WIndbg and if you disassemble from where you landed, the function that implements the nLoadImage method will be crystal clear – clr!AssemblyNative::LoadImage
     
     
    You can now use IDA for further analysis and begin digging into the actual implementation of this InternalCall method!
     
     
    After digging into some of the InternalCall methods in IDA you’ll quickly see that most functions use the fastcall convention. In x86, this means that a static function will pass its first two arguments via ECX and EDX. If it’s an instance function, the ‘this’ pointer will be passed via ECX (as is standard in thiscall) and its first argument via EDX. Any remaining arguments are pushed onto the stack.
     
    So for the handful of people that have wondered where the implementation for an InternalCall method lies, I hope this post has been helpful.

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