We covered the boot2root challenge Athena from TryHackMe. We scanned the machine with Nmap and discovered SMB server from which we extracted a note that pointed us to a directory on the webserver where we discovered a ping tool running. We used command substitution to inject a bind shell and land the first foothold. We discovered a backup script running on a periodic basis as another user. We modified the script to execute reverse shell and opened another session as the user Athena. Upon enumeration, we found that the user Athena can load kernel modules as sudo using insmod without the need for root password. We downloaded the kernal module "venom.ko" and used Ghidra to reverse engineer the binary. We discovered that it's a rootkit and after code analysis we were able to interact with the module to call a function that escalated privileges from Athena to Root.

Video is here

Writeup is here

I have a galaxy note8 with a custom ROM. I was wondering if there was a way to get the same customization that good lock gives?

so i was in talkback mode just going deep into the web browser and managed to crack the son of a bitch by placing a working sim card halfway into its slot and causing it to wanna go check the number on the sim which was unlocked, it successfully caused the phone to get unlocked just thought i would share that tidbit with you kings

How could I cross compile, assemble and link an Windows Kernel Module/Driver to a SYS file over MingW and GCC compiler AR assembler and LD linker.

Alternatively maybe some other open source tool that runs on Linux for cross compiling assembling and linking that can produce Windows SYS files.

I know SYS files are similar to DLLs also flagged for native subsystem and have DriverEntry function referenced in DRIVER_INITIALIZE callback, but how could I create one from scratch without Windows Driver Kit.

Header files like ntddk.h and others are rewritten for MingW, but what else I need to have and to know to craft a driver.

I was able to find Frank Rysanek archive of an example Windows Driver for cross compiling over MingW but there are some problems.

Ever since i updated windows to win11 22h2 my defender has been acting strange. Firstly it seemed to change the firewall settings, tamper protection and other essential settings. I reacted quickly, scanned the machine with tdsskiller, malwarebytes and defenders built in scanner but none of these detected anything strange.

I also did som ram forensics with volatility which, from what i gather, only returned false positives. I reinstalled the os from settings several times but the problems with defender persists. Is this some form of advanced root/bootkit that persists through reinstalls or something in the update that went wrong. Super thankful for any help!

Does anyone know if there are plans for a 3rd edition of the book "The Rootkit Arsenal: Escape and Evasion in the Dark Corners of the System" (ISBN: 144962636X) ? Or if it's perhaps even under way?

I've tried to look around but can't find any information if the author is working on it or not. Thanks!

I'm trying to learn how rootkit works (for educational purposes). I have the source code of Kbeast rootkit. To hide a process from the ps|| pstree etc. command it has the following function,

asmlinkage int h4x_write(unsigned int fd, const char __user *buf,size_t count)
{
   int r;
   char *kbuf=(char*)kmalloc(256,GFP_KERNEL);
   copy_from_user(kbuf,buf,255);
   if ((strstr(current->comm,"ps"))||(strstr(current->comm,"pstree"))||
        (strstr(current->comm,"top"))||(strstr(current->comm,"lsof"))){
            if(strstr(kbuf,_H4X0R_)||strstr(kbuf,KBEAST)){
                   kfree(kbuf);
                   return -ENOENT;
            }
   }
   r=(*o_write)(fd,buf,count);
   kfree(kbuf);
   return r;
}

This function override sys_call_table [__NR_write]. My understanding is *buf, contain the name of the process it is trying to hide. using copy_from_user(), buf is copied into a kernel buffer kbuf and then upon detecting the ps||pstree||... command using strstr(), it looks for the process_to_hide(H4X0R). It a match found then, free the kernel buffer kbuf. Is my understanding is correct?

I check the content of buf. It contains nothing, therefore it never works. Please help me understand this.

Hello. Do you know reason of closing rootkit.com? Do you have any archives from this website? I mean files

Hey, some days ago I bought a book “Rootkits” by Greg Hoglund and James Butler, and it made me really interested in developing own rootkits, but this book is outdated. Does anybody know good book/video/course to make own rootkits?

Hi all, I'd like to ask if the second edition is still relevant for those days and not out of date for any one who wants to start learning about rootkits.

Thanks.

Hi, I am a newbie about bios/uefi rootkit and I'd like to ask u your opinion.

Thus, my questions are:

• Are bios/uefi rootkits real ?

• How can I check my bios/uefi firmware ? are there some check integrity tools ?

• is technically possible to hijack the software bios dump to hide the rootkit it self ?

• is technically possible to infect othere devices like nic or video card to inject a kernel module in the os ?

• is there a way to write-protect bios/uefi reflashing ? maybe the old jumper way ?

• libreboot could be a solution to bios/uefi malware ?

Thank u.

I've been looking up various rootkits and reading about how they worked to try to gain an understanding of their activity, and one that's stumped me is phide2.

I understand that it uses DKOM to hide itself, that it unlinks itself from the EPROCESS list like the FU rootkit, that it unlinks itself from the ETHREAD list as well, and that it implements a private thread scheduler to keep its process running despite being unlinked from the thread lists the scheduler uses to determine process running time, but I'm not sure exactly how it implements that privae scheduler.

My current best guess is that it runs an additional, non-hidden thread which periodically tells the scheduler to execute the hidden threads and keeps those threads off the ETHREAD list for the rest of the time. But doesn't this break the rootkit? If it's running a thread that can't be hidden to implement a private scheduler, what's the point of hiding its hidden threads? There's still a non hidden thread running.

Also, is the Clock Locking Beats rootkit implemented by m0nk (see link, start at 22:00) related to this rootkit? They both seem to do the same thing.

https://youtu.be/gKUleWyfut0

Is anyone aware of any mirror of Rootkit.com? with the code samples etc?

Hello people,

I am currently working on my undergraduate thesis on Android forensics. I would like to make some case studies, but I am having hard time finding some Android rootkits. I have found lots of malware, but not rootkits in specific. I am aware of suterusu which is open source, but I am looking for something already compiled.

So, if anyone has any idea/comment/suggestion feel free to throw it or contact me.

Thank you very much.

Hey,

Has anyone seen any practical implementations of os level rootkit detection in hypervisors? I can find lots of research papers but nothing concrete - might just be my google-fu failing.