Bypassing client-side antivirus protection using msfencode

In the previous recipe, we focused on how to generate an executable shellcode and use it as a weapon for a client-side attack. But, such executables are easily detectable by the client-side antivirus protection which can prevent execution of such malicious files and raise alarms as well. So what can we do now? We will have to move to the next level of attack vector by bypassing the antivirus protection. Encoding the executables is an effective technique.

Antivirus uses a signature-based technique in which they identify a potential threat by verifying the file's first few lines of code with their signature database. If a match is found, then the file is treated as a threat. We will have to exploit this technique of antiviruses in order to bypass them. msfencode is an effective tool which encodes the shellcodes and makes them less detectable to antiviruses. There are numerous encoding options provided to us by msfencode.

There is an...