One of the main issues in the OS security is to provide trusted code execution in an untrusted en... more One of the main issues in the OS security is to provide trusted code execution in an untrusted environment. During executing, kernel-mode drivers allocate and process memory data: OS internal structures, users private information, and sensitive data of third-party drivers. All this data and the drivers code can be tampered with by kernel-mode malware. Microsoft security experts integrated new features to fill this gap, but they are not enough: allocated data can be stolen and patched and the drivers code can be dumped without any security reaction. The proposed hypervisor-based system (MemoryRanger) tackles this issue by executing drivers in separate kernel enclaves with specific memory attributes. MemoryRanger protects code and data using Intel VT-x and EPT features with low performance degradation on Windows 10 x64.
This paper focuses on the anticipatory enhancement of methods of detecting stealth software. Cybe... more This paper focuses on the anticipatory enhancement of methods of detecting stealth software. Cyber security detection tools are insufficiently powerful to reveal the most recent cyber-attacks which use malware. In this paper, we will present first an idea of the highest stealth malware, as this is the most complicated scenario for detection because it combines both existing anti-forensic techniques together with their potential improvements. Second, we present new detection methods, which are resilient to this hidden prototype. To help solve this detection challenge, we have analyzed Windows memory content using a new method of Shannon Entropy calculation; methods of digital photogrammetry; the Zipf Mandelbrot law, as well as by disassembling the memory content and analyzing the output. Finally, we present an idea and architecture of the software tool, which uses CUDA enabled GPU hardware to speed-up memory forensics. All three ideas are currently a work in progress.
One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted env... more One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted environment. During executing, kernel-mode drivers dynamically allocate memory to store and process their data: Windows core kernel structures, users' private information, and sensitive data of third-party drivers. All this data can be tampered with by kernel-mode malware. Attacks on Windows-based computers can cause not just hiding a malware driver, process privilege escalation, and stealing private data but also failures of industrial CNC machines. Windows built-in security and existing approaches do not provide the integrity and confidentiality of the allocated memory of third-party drivers. The proposed hypervisor-based system (AllMemPro) protects allocated data from being modified or stolen. AllMemPro prevents access to even 1 byte of allocated data, adapts for newly allocated memory in real time, and protects the driver without its source code. AllMemPro works well on newest Windo...
The security of a computer system depends on OS kernel protection. It is crucial to reveal and in... more The security of a computer system depends on OS kernel protection. It is crucial to reveal and inspect new attacks on kernel data, as these are used by hackers. The purpose of this paper is to continue research into attacks on dynamically allocated data in the Windows OS kernel and demonstrate the capacity of MemoryRanger to prevent these attacks. This paper discusses three new hijacking attacks on kernel data, which are based on bypassing OS security mechanisms. The first two hijacking attacks result in illegal access to files open in exclusive access. The third attack escalates process privileges, without applying token swapping. Although Windows security experts have issued new protection features, access attempts to the dynamically allocated data in the kernel are not fully controlled. MemoryRanger hypervisor is designed to fill this security gap. The updated MemoryRanger prevents these new attacks as well as supporting the Windows 1
2021 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops (SPW), 2021
Windows OS issued a newly updated security mechanism to prevent illegal access to the memory of c... more Windows OS issued a newly updated security mechanism to prevent illegal access to the memory of critical processes as well as for Digital Rights Management (DRM) requirements. It is Protected Process Light (PPL). Intruders can disable PPL to access memory content of protected processes using a kernel driver. Also, they can illegally enable PPL for the malware apps to provide self-protection and access memory of protected processes, without disabling their PPL. PatchGuard does not check the integrity of PPL. This kind of attack is crucial for OS security and has to be prevented. This paper presents some undocumented internals of PPL during the creation of the protected process as well as accessing the protected process memory to analyze how the PPL can be tampered with. In this contribution, the hypervisor-based solution called MemoryRanger is applied to prevent such type of kernel attacks on PPL. MemoryRanger can prevent both types of attacks on PPL: disabling and enabling PPL in tun time. MemoryRanger has been successfully tested on the recent Windows 10, version 20H2 Build 19042.631 x64.
Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft Patch... more Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft PatchGuard. To protect users and business systems new technologies developed by Intel and AMD CPUs may be applied. To deal with the new malware we propose monitoring and controlling access to the memory in real time using Intel VT-x with EPT. We have checked this concept by developing MemoryMonRWX, which is a bare-metal hypervisor. MemoryMonRWX is able to track and trap all types of memory access: read, write, and execute. MemoryMonRWX also has the following competitive advantages: fine-grained analysis, support of multi-core CPUs and 64-bit Windows 10. MemoryMonRWX is able to protect critical kernel memory areas even when PatchGuard has been disabled by malware. Its main innovative features are as follows: guaranteed interception of every memory access, resilience, and low performance degradation.
One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted env... more One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted environment. During executing, kernel-mode drivers dynamically allocate memory to store and process their data: Windows core kernel structures, users’ private information, and sensitive data of third-party drivers. All this data can be tampered with by kernel-mode malware. Attacks on Windows-based computers can cause not just hiding a malware driver, process privilege escalation, and stealing private data but also failures of industrial CNC machines. Windows built-in security and existing approaches do not provide the integrity and confidentiality of the allocated memory of third-party drivers. The proposed hypervisor-based system (AllMemPro) protects allocated data from being modified or stolen. AllMemPro prevents access to even 1 byte of allocated data, adapts for newly allocated memory in real time, and protects the driver without its source code. AllMemPro works well on newest Windows 10 1709 x64.
Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft Patch... more Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft PatchGuard. To protect users and business systems new technologies developed by Intel and AMD CPUs may be applied. To deal with the new malware we propose monitoring and controlling access to the memory in real time using Intel VT-x with EPT. We have checked this concept by developing MemoryMonRWX, which is a bare-metal hypervisor. MemoryMonRWX is able to track and trap all types of memory access: read, write, and execute. MemoryMonRWX also has the following competitive advantages: fine-grained analysis, support of multi-core CPUs and 64-bit Windows 10. MemoryMonRWX is able to protect critical kernel memory areas even when PatchGuard has been disabled by malware. Its main innovative features are as follows: guaranteed interception of every memory access, resilience, and low performance degradation.
One of the main issues in the OS security is to provide trusted code execution in an untrusted en... more One of the main issues in the OS security is to provide trusted code execution in an untrusted environment. During executing, kernel-mode drivers allocate and process memory data: OS internal structures, users private information, and sensitive data of third-party drivers. All this data and the drivers code can be tampered with by kernel-mode malware. Microsoft security experts integrated new features to fill this gap, but they are not enough: allocated data can be stolen and patched and the drivers code can be dumped without any security reaction. The proposed hypervisor-based system (MemoryRanger) tackles this issue by executing drivers in separate kernel enclaves with specific memory attributes. MemoryRanger protects code and data using Intel VT-x and EPT features with low performance degradation on Windows 10 x64.
This paper focuses on the anticipatory enhancement of methods of detecting stealth software. Cybe... more This paper focuses on the anticipatory enhancement of methods of detecting stealth software. Cyber security detection tools are insufficiently powerful to reveal the most recent cyber-attacks which use malware. In this paper, we will present first an idea of the highest stealth malware, as this is the most complicated scenario for detection because it combines both existing anti-forensic techniques together with their potential improvements. Second, we present new detection methods, which are resilient to this hidden prototype. To help solve this detection challenge, we have analyzed Windows memory content using a new method of Shannon Entropy calculation; methods of digital photogrammetry; the Zipf Mandelbrot law, as well as by disassembling the memory content and analyzing the output. Finally, we present an idea and architecture of the software tool, which uses CUDA enabled GPU hardware to speed-up memory forensics. All three ideas are currently a work in progress.
One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted env... more One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted environment. During executing, kernel-mode drivers dynamically allocate memory to store and process their data: Windows core kernel structures, users' private information, and sensitive data of third-party drivers. All this data can be tampered with by kernel-mode malware. Attacks on Windows-based computers can cause not just hiding a malware driver, process privilege escalation, and stealing private data but also failures of industrial CNC machines. Windows built-in security and existing approaches do not provide the integrity and confidentiality of the allocated memory of third-party drivers. The proposed hypervisor-based system (AllMemPro) protects allocated data from being modified or stolen. AllMemPro prevents access to even 1 byte of allocated data, adapts for newly allocated memory in real time, and protects the driver without its source code. AllMemPro works well on newest Windo...
The security of a computer system depends on OS kernel protection. It is crucial to reveal and in... more The security of a computer system depends on OS kernel protection. It is crucial to reveal and inspect new attacks on kernel data, as these are used by hackers. The purpose of this paper is to continue research into attacks on dynamically allocated data in the Windows OS kernel and demonstrate the capacity of MemoryRanger to prevent these attacks. This paper discusses three new hijacking attacks on kernel data, which are based on bypassing OS security mechanisms. The first two hijacking attacks result in illegal access to files open in exclusive access. The third attack escalates process privileges, without applying token swapping. Although Windows security experts have issued new protection features, access attempts to the dynamically allocated data in the kernel are not fully controlled. MemoryRanger hypervisor is designed to fill this security gap. The updated MemoryRanger prevents these new attacks as well as supporting the Windows 1
2021 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops (SPW), 2021
Windows OS issued a newly updated security mechanism to prevent illegal access to the memory of c... more Windows OS issued a newly updated security mechanism to prevent illegal access to the memory of critical processes as well as for Digital Rights Management (DRM) requirements. It is Protected Process Light (PPL). Intruders can disable PPL to access memory content of protected processes using a kernel driver. Also, they can illegally enable PPL for the malware apps to provide self-protection and access memory of protected processes, without disabling their PPL. PatchGuard does not check the integrity of PPL. This kind of attack is crucial for OS security and has to be prevented. This paper presents some undocumented internals of PPL during the creation of the protected process as well as accessing the protected process memory to analyze how the PPL can be tampered with. In this contribution, the hypervisor-based solution called MemoryRanger is applied to prevent such type of kernel attacks on PPL. MemoryRanger can prevent both types of attacks on PPL: disabling and enabling PPL in tun time. MemoryRanger has been successfully tested on the recent Windows 10, version 20H2 Build 19042.631 x64.
Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft Patch... more Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft PatchGuard. To protect users and business systems new technologies developed by Intel and AMD CPUs may be applied. To deal with the new malware we propose monitoring and controlling access to the memory in real time using Intel VT-x with EPT. We have checked this concept by developing MemoryMonRWX, which is a bare-metal hypervisor. MemoryMonRWX is able to track and trap all types of memory access: read, write, and execute. MemoryMonRWX also has the following competitive advantages: fine-grained analysis, support of multi-core CPUs and 64-bit Windows 10. MemoryMonRWX is able to protect critical kernel memory areas even when PatchGuard has been disabled by malware. Its main innovative features are as follows: guaranteed interception of every memory access, resilience, and low performance degradation.
One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted env... more One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted environment. During executing, kernel-mode drivers dynamically allocate memory to store and process their data: Windows core kernel structures, users’ private information, and sensitive data of third-party drivers. All this data can be tampered with by kernel-mode malware. Attacks on Windows-based computers can cause not just hiding a malware driver, process privilege escalation, and stealing private data but also failures of industrial CNC machines. Windows built-in security and existing approaches do not provide the integrity and confidentiality of the allocated memory of third-party drivers. The proposed hypervisor-based system (AllMemPro) protects allocated data from being modified or stolen. AllMemPro prevents access to even 1 byte of allocated data, adapts for newly allocated memory in real time, and protects the driver without its source code. AllMemPro works well on newest Windows 10 1709 x64.
Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft Patch... more Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft PatchGuard. To protect users and business systems new technologies developed by Intel and AMD CPUs may be applied. To deal with the new malware we propose monitoring and controlling access to the memory in real time using Intel VT-x with EPT. We have checked this concept by developing MemoryMonRWX, which is a bare-metal hypervisor. MemoryMonRWX is able to track and trap all types of memory access: read, write, and execute. MemoryMonRWX also has the following competitive advantages: fine-grained analysis, support of multi-core CPUs and 64-bit Windows 10. MemoryMonRWX is able to protect critical kernel memory areas even when PatchGuard has been disabled by malware. Its main innovative features are as follows: guaranteed interception of every memory access, resilience, and low performance degradation.
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Papers by Igor Korkin