12.3 - Example - Static Malware Analysis(Continued)

In the last part we saw that a part of the code launches an embedded instance of IE. We also have Wireshark running so we can capture any network traffic that is sent by the malware. We also broke last time at 40B511, exiting from the thread that created IE. Lets move forward quicker now and see what else happens.

Remember that the more functions you can identify; the easier it is for you to analyze the overall purpose of the executable. There are a few CALLs that happen which just try and find out which directory a file was from or do other relatively unimportant operations from a malware perspective. We then come to a call - CALL 0040B849. On going deeper into this function you will find that its a very interesting function which logs all the operations of the malware into a file in C:\. So that now is another bit of information that we can tally with our dynamic analysis. And since its logging stuff... it also gives us some nice inputs about what the malware is doing at a specific amount of time. Open up the file soft_AOL.log in C: and see for yourself. Another key point that you'd want to know is that this function is also a very common function - look at the middle pane again in Olly just after you step into it. It has a lot of addresses from where a call was made. For e.g:
Local calls from 00401729, 00401754, 004017D8, 004019B6, 004019D8, 00401B85, 00401C5B, 00401D13, 00401D6C, 00401F3E, 00401F99, 004026F6, 0040278B, 004027C6, 00402894, 0040293D, 00402ACE, 00402B1F, 00402B69, 00402B71, 00402B7B, 00402BA5, 00402C4A, ...

At 40B56B the existence of a file c:\Windows\lgv is checked. Its not too clear why it does this at this point; maybe its confirmation that the malware is active and more stuff can be done. Keep looking at Wireshark by the way - the moment you see some data there, you know you have to stop and go back and see where the traffic came from. So lets F8 on till we come to a call at 0040b679 - CALL 004029B8. Step over this as well and then quickly look at Wireshark..its suddenly filled up with traffic. That means the previous CALL was very important. Put a breakpoint on that call and restart; when you get to the CALL step into it. Starting at 4029B8 F8 on till 402A08 where Wireshark starts filling up again. Put another breakpoint, restart and step into the CALL at 402A0B this time. And so on..you keep stepping in till you find out exactly where the call is and why Wireshark is filling up. Once you step into the CALL at 402A0B you reach the address at 0040B01A. Now look at the code below..lots of comments there and some very interesting ones. I won't talk about every single CALL, I'll never finish that way ;). Before you move on though, do step into the call at the address 40B04B - its the routine which decides the list of domains that the malware will talk to at some point. There's a small encryption algorithm in there.. do try and see how the names of those domains are generated. Notice all that text btw? "scan domain attempt" or "check inet"... all of that goes into that log file in C: . Have a look.

Go on till you reach 40B0AC where there is a JMP 40B113. This means that control flow switches to this address. F8 so the JMP happens and at the very next instruction jumps back to 40B0AE. F8 on till you reach 40B0CB and look at the EAX register on the right side. You see a weird looking site there? Yes you do :). Now that is a big piece of information..maybe maybe the malware connects there for some purpose? Go on til 40B0E2 and look at EAX again. You see something called .sys.php? Looks like a part of some URL. Things are getting interesting now..aren't they? Go on till 40B0F8. Look at Wireshark and notice that nothing has happened so far. F8 over the CALL 405086 statement and now look at Wireshark. Yesss!! Traffic seen..and its a HTTP request made to that site we saw in EAX and for the file .sys.php. Look at the response to the request though in Wireshark - its a 404 not found. The malware did not find what it was looking for. How does it respond? F8 on and you'll notice that you get to the same point where you jump back to 40B0AE and repeat this same stuff with a new site. This process continues until some site responds with a 200 OK message, saying "Yes I have that file". Put a breakpoint on 40B17B so the code just doesn't connect and complete the remaining process before you can intervene.

The code returns eventually to 402A10 and continues from there. Lots of interesting stuff but just continue on till you reach 402BA0. "Crypted Code detected".. hmmm. Something encrypted was returned when we made a request for .sys.php and the malware is decrypting it for some reason. How does this decryption work? Do not know. F8 on till you reach 402BE5. Look at the contents of the EBX register now? See a message there with a URL that looks like Internet Spam?? Right click on the EBX register and say "Follow in Dump". The whole URL is very clearly visible now!!

I think the rest is guessable. This malware connects to a huge list of random sites, finds an active on, requests a URL from it, gets an encrypted message, decrypts it and then posts it on lifestream.aol.com which is AOL's social media platform using some user ID and password. If you continue stepping through the code you will also find out the credentials that are used each time. I tried it 3 times and found 3 different passwords - I think it creates a new account, posts Spam and logs out. But hey..don't take my word for it. Try it out for yourself :)

At one point of time the Embedded IE window can be viewed completely and you can actually see malware entering credentials into it and coming back with a "Cannot Login" message.

I still have questions about some parts of this malware and could not fully understand every bit. For e.g I could not find out how the SSL connection which we talked about during dynamic analysis was established. But I'm sure its all a matter of time and thought that all of this itself is a good learning and many newbies to this field can gain something from it.

I hope you enjoyed this and you feel reversing is doable by you as well. Until next time goodbye :)