Windows APT Warfare: Identify and prevent Windows APT attacks effectively
- Length: 258 pages
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- Publisher: Packt Publishing
- Publication Date: 2023-03-10
- ISBN-10: 180461811X
- ISBN-13: 9781804618110
- Sales Rank: #582815 (See Top 100 Books)
Learn Windows system design from the PE binary structure to modern and practical attack techniques used by red teams to implement advanced prevention
Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook
Key Features
- Understand how malware evades modern security products
- Learn to reverse engineer standard PE format program files
- Become familiar with modern attack techniques used by multiple red teams
Book Description
An Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is a severe form of cyberattack that lies low in the system for a prolonged time and locates and then exploits sensitive information. Preventing APTs requires a strong foundation of basic security techniques combined with effective security monitoring. This book will help you gain a red team perspective on exploiting system design and master techniques to prevent APT attacks. Once you’ve understood the internal design of operating systems, you’ll be ready to get hands-on with red team attacks and, further, learn how to create and compile C source code into an EXE program file. Throughout this book, you’ll explore the inner workings of how Windows systems run and how attackers abuse this knowledge to bypass antivirus products and protection.
As you advance, you’ll cover practical examples of malware and online game hacking, such as EXE infection, shellcode development, software packers, UAC bypass, path parser vulnerabilities, and digital signature forgery, gaining expertise in keeping your system safe from this kind of malware.
By the end of this book, you’ll be well equipped to implement the red team techniques that you’ve learned on a victim’s computer environment, attempting to bypass security and antivirus products, to test its defense against Windows APT attacks.
What you will learn
- Explore various DLL injection techniques for setting API hooks
- Understand how to run an arbitrary program file in memory
- Become familiar with malware obfuscation techniques to evade antivirus detection
- Discover how malware circumvents current security measures and tools
- Use Microsoft Authenticode to sign your code to avoid tampering
- Explore various strategies to bypass UAC design for privilege escalation
Who this book is for
This book is for cybersecurity professionals- especially for anyone working on Windows security, or malware researchers, network administrators, ethical hackers looking to explore Windows exploit, kernel practice, and reverse engineering. A basic understanding of reverse engineering and C/C++ will be helpful.
Cover Title Page Copyright and Credits Dedication Foreword Contributors Disclaimer Table of Contents Preface Part 1 – Modern Windows Compiler Chapter 1: From Source to Binaries – The Journey of a C Program The simplest Windows program in C C compiler – assembly code generation Assembler – transforming assembly code into machine code Compiling code Windows linker – packing binary data into PE format Running static PE files as dynamic processes Summary Chapter 2: Process Memory – File Mapping, PE Parser, tinyLinker, and Hollowing Sample programs The memory of the static contents of PE files NT Headers Section Headers PE Parser example Dynamic file mapping PE infection (PE Patcher) example tinyLinker example Examples of process hollowing PE files to HTML Summary Chapter 3: Dynamic API Calling – Thread, Process, and Environment Information Sample programs Function calling convention Calling convention Thread Environment Block (TEB) Process Environment Block Examples of process parameter forgery Examples of enumerating loaded modules without an API Examples of disguising and hiding loaded DLLs Summary Part 2 – Windows Process Internals Chapter 4: Shellcode Technique – Exported Function Parsing Sample programs EATs in PE Examples of a DLL file analyzer Dynamic crawling function in PE Examples of writing shellcode in x86 A shellcode generator in Python Summary Chapter 5: Application Loader Design Import Address Table in PE Import API analyzer example Calling programs directly in memory Examples of IAT hijack DLL side-loading example Summary Chapter 6: PE Module Relocation Relocation table of PE tinyLoader example Summary Part 3 – Abuse System Design and Red Team Tips Chapter 7: PE to Shellcode – Transforming PE Files into Shellcode The open source project pe_to_shellcode analysis Parsing Kernel32’s export table in x86 assembly Getting API addresses in x86 assembly File mapping and repairing an import table in x86 Handling relocation in x86 An example of PE to shellcode Summary Chapter 8: Software Packer Design What is a software packer? Packer builder Stub – the main program of an unpacker Examples of software packers Summary Chapter 9: Digital Signature – Authenticode Verification Authenticode digital signatures Signature verification WinVerifyTrust under the hood Signature data in PE files PKCS 7 information Examples of mock signatures Examples of bypassing hash verification Examples of signature steganography Getting signed by abusing path normalization Summary Chapter 10: Reversing User Account Control and Bypassing Tricks UAC overview RAiLaunchAdminProcess callback Two-level authentication mechanism Authentication A Authentication B UAC interface program, ConsentUI Elevated privilege conditions Improper registry configuration triggered by privilege hijacking privileges Examples of bypassing UAC Elevated COM Object (IFileOperation) CMSTP arbitrary privilege elevation execution Achieving elevated privileges through trusted path collisions Summary Appendix – NTFS, Paths, and Symbols Win32 and NT path specification DOS Path 1.0 DOS Path 2.0 Example Example Example Example Example Example Example Example Index About Packt Other Books You May Enjoy
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