New "Mebroot" MBR-Modifying Rootkit Analyzed

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "F-Secure has a writeup on a highly obfuscated, advanced new rootkit they recently discovered which uses a number of old techniques like MBR modification in new ways. It modifies the MBR, starts up its downloader with an ntoskrnl.exe hook set to nt!Phase1Initialization (which conveniently removes it from memory afterwards), and hooks IRP_MJ_READ and IRP_MJ_WRITE in disk.sys to hide itself in empty sectors. It also bypasses software firewalls by calling the NDIS API directly, using a 'code pullout' technique to load just the parts of ndis.sys that it needs. F-Secure believes it was written by professionals who are after financial information."

Would these issues affect EFI to the same degree?

[The Ancients]

After seeing rootkits spring from many sources (yes - including Sony) would the introduction of EFI bring greater barriers to this sort of exploit, or would it just be a matter of time before the crackers have their hooks into this to the same extent as well?

Nice Job

[QuantumG]

Of course, back in the day we called it "stealth" and a "root kit" was what you used to "get root" on a unix box.. but hey, language changes. How about adding some infection routines to that puppy and letting it live?

Not that I'd ever encourage such behavior.

Re:Nice Job

[Gideon Fubar]

you know, that's one piece of language drift i don't mind.. the windows rootkit is a totally different beast to an elevation exploit..

you're totally right tho. Back in the day, this would have just been called a boot infector with some interesting stealth. I gotta say, i'm really surprised that stuff like this still works..

DOS Viruses

[ledow]

Maybe it's just me remembering the good old days of DOS viruses but none of this actually seems "new", except for "calling the NDIS API directly, using a 'code pullout' technique to load just the parts of ndis.sys that it needs", which is just a shortcut to direct hardware access... it's basically loading another copy of a library to use it seperately from the OS (and therefore, presumably, OS security) to access the network card. It's a nice way to access a network card from "below" the OS in a hardware-independent way (i.e. let's pinch the Windows driver rather than try to work out what card we are using and create 1000 drivers for each different brand of card.). But on the whole, this is hardly "new" or "shocking".

Having said that, it's nice to see something where people have actually invested time and skill into creating a program that bypasses the OS in such a way, rather than just another re-written script with a couple of variables changed.

Lines like:

"This malware is very professionally written and produced. Which of course means it's not written for fun."

might annoy some, though. The old DOS viruses NEVER really acheieved anything useful (even with blackmail attempts while holding your boot sector to ransom) etc. and were written "just because" by teenagers. That didn't stop them from appearing professionally written and breaking genuinely new ground for the time. Just because people are now using such malware for financial gain, doesn't mean that it's ALWAYS the case. And Linux zealots are sure to jump on the above quote with all their hearts. :-)

And then you have the obvious - why is the OS allowing you to modify the MBR without appropriate rights and/or why are users running as users with the rights necessary to do this? This is STILL a problem harking back to the DOS days - everyone as administrator. With a new twist - the average user hasn't needed to BE administrator for quite a long time now.

Re:Would these issues affect EFI to the same degre

[CastrTroy]

Couldn't you just have a USB stick with a physical switch to set it as readonly, and then set the computer to only boot off that device? Most (all?) new computers support booting off the USB device. Using this method of booting, along with having /usr and other places mounted as write only, you could probably stop most stuff from infecting the system. You might still have a problem with things infecting your home directory, but that can be more easily removed.

Re:Would these issues affect EFI to the same degre

[stonecypher]

Naivity belongs to you, not grandparent.

Not all computer users use (up-to-date) anti-virus software

No, but about 85% of computer users do, and financial information is a question of hitting as many people as possible.

Even fewer computer users use (up-to-date) anti-malware software

This isn't worth saying seperately, and this is an AV issue.

And, even if computer users use both up-to-date anti-virus and anti-malware software, they will be vulnerable in the time frame between the release of the rootkit and the release of the anti-rootkit software upgrade that fights it

And since time and the physical universe stop forever when a rootkit gets defeated, it doesn't matter that they'll lose enormous amounts of money afterwards by being shut out afterwards.

in this time frame the rootkit writers will 'make' more money than most Slashdot users during their whole life

Since we're talking hours here, then if you really believe there's that rate of transfer (there isn't - the more you take per day, the higher the chance you get detected by other means) - then surely you can see why they'd want this door open for months instead of hours?

Honestly. Whoever modded that insightful wasn't thinking at all.