Author: Didier Stevens

Cobalt Strike: Decrypting DNS Traffic – Part 5

Cobalt Strike beacons can communicate over DNS. We show how to decode and decrypt DNS traffic in this blog post. This series of blog posts describes different methods to decrypt Cobalt Strike traffic. In part 1 of this series, we revealed private encryption keys found in rogue Cobalt Strike packages. In part 2, we decrypted … Continue reading Cobalt Strike: Decrypting DNS Traffic – Part 5 →

Cobalt Strike: Decrypting Obfuscated Traffic – Part 4

Encrypted Cobalt Strike C2 traffic can be obfuscated with malleable C2 data transforms. We show how to deobfuscate such traffic. This series of blog posts describes different methods to decrypt Cobalt Strike traffic. In part 1 of this series, we revealed private encryption keys found in rogue Cobalt Strike packages. In part 2, we decrypted … Continue reading Cobalt Strike: Decrypting Obfuscated Traffic – Part 4 →

Detecting DCSync and DCShadow Network Traffic

This blog post on detecting Mimikatz' DCSync and DCShadow network traffic, accompanies SANS webinar "Detecting DCSync and DCShadow Network Traffic". Intro Mimikatz provides two commands to interact with a Windows Domain Controller and extract or alter data from the Active Directory database. These two commands are dcsync and dcshadow. The dcsync command can be used, … Continue reading Detecting DCSync and DCShadow Network Traffic →

Cobalt Strike: Using Process Memory To Decrypt Traffic – Part 3

We decrypt Cobalt Strike traffic with cryptographic keys extracted from process memory. This series of blog posts describes different methods to decrypt Cobalt Strike traffic. In part 1 of this series, we revealed private encryption keys found in rogue Cobalt Strike packages. And in part 2, we decrypted Cobalt Strike traffic starting with a private … Continue reading Cobalt Strike: Using Process Memory To Decrypt Traffic – Part 3 →

Cobalt Strike: Using Known Private Keys To Decrypt Traffic – Part 2

We decrypt Cobalt Strike traffic using one of 6 private keys we found. In this blog post, we will analyze a Cobalt Strike infection by looking at a full packet capture that was taken during the infection. This analysis includes decryption of the C2 traffic. If you haven't already, we invite you to read part … Continue reading Cobalt Strike: Using Known Private Keys To Decrypt Traffic – Part 2 →

Cobalt Strike: Using Known Private Keys To Decrypt Traffic – Part 1

We found 6 private keys for rogue Cobalt Strike software, enabling C2 network traffic decryption. The communication between a Cobalt Strike beacon (client) and a Cobalt Strike team server (C2) is encrypted with AES (even when it takes place over HTTPS). The AES key is generated by the beacon, and communicated to the C2 using … Continue reading Cobalt Strike: Using Known Private Keys To Decrypt Traffic – Part 1 →

Tampering with Digitally Signed VBA Projects

TL;DR Macro code in Office documents can be digitally signed, and Office can be configured to restrict macro execution to digitally signed documents. We found a method to alter digitally signed VBA projects to execute our own, arbitrary code under the right conditions, without invalidating the digital signature. When we recommend clients to harden their … Continue reading Tampering with Digitally Signed VBA Projects →

Video: Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) Bypass using VBA

Introduction Attack surface reduction rules in Windows target software behaviors that are often abused by attackers. In this blog post & video, we want to demonstrate a way of bypassing one of these rules from within VBA. Bypass Parent process selection can be done from VBA. There is an Attack Surface Reduction rule to block … Continue reading Video: Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) Bypass using VBA →

Evidence of VBA Purging Found in Malicious Documents

TL;DR We have found malicious Office documents containing VBA source code only, and no compiled code. Documents like these are more likely to evade anti-virus detection due to a technique we dubbed "VBA Purging". VBA Purging techniqueMalicious MS Office documents leveraging VBA, have their VBA code stored inside streams of Compound File Binary Format files. … Continue reading Evidence of VBA Purging Found in Malicious Documents →