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Windows APT Warfare

You're reading from   Windows APT Warfare Identify and prevent Windows APT attacks effectively

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Product type Paperback
Published in Mar 2023
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781804618110
Length 258 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Author (1):
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Sheng-Hao Ma Sheng-Hao Ma
Author Profile Icon Sheng-Hao Ma
Sheng-Hao Ma
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Toc

Table of Contents (17) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Part 1 – Modern Windows Compiler
2. Chapter 1: From Source to Binaries – The Journey of a C Program FREE CHAPTER 3. Chapter 2: Process Memory – File Mapping, PE Parser, tinyLinker, and Hollowing 4. Chapter 3: Dynamic API Calling – Thread, Process, and Environment Information 5. Part 2 – Windows Process Internals
6. Chapter 4: Shellcode Technique – Exported Function Parsing 7. Chapter 5: Application Loader Design 8. Chapter 6: PE Module Relocation 9. Part 3 – Abuse System Design and Red Team Tips
10. Chapter 7: PE to Shellcode – Transforming PE Files into Shellcode 11. Chapter 8: Software Packer Design 12. Chapter 9: Digital Signature – Authenticode Verification 13. Chapter 10: Reversing User Account Control and Bypassing Tricks 14. Index 15. Other Books You May Enjoy Appendix – NTFS, Paths, and Symbols

Function calling convention

In the previous chapters, we learned that the compiler saves chunks of code in different sections depending on the function of the source code. For example, the code is converted to machine code and stored in the .text section, the data is stored in the .data or .rdata section, and the import address table (IAT) is stored in the .idata section, as shown in Figure 3.1:

Figure 3.1 – Native code of msgbox.exe

Figure 3.1 – Native code of msgbox.exe

Shellcode is a concise machine code script. When we can hijack a thread’s program counter, such as the EIP or RIP registers or the return address, we can control it in shellcode to perform specific and precise tasks (calling a specific set of system APIs). Common behaviors (such as downloading and executing malware, reverse shell connections, pop-up windows, etc.) are all achieved by calling the system API.

However, unlike PE programs, shellcode does not run with the help of the kernel to do file mapping or...

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