Using Binject

Binject is a sweet multipart library, making up several tools for code-caving and backdooring binaries via golang. The project was originally inspired as a rewrite of the backdoor factory in go and now that it’s functional this post will show you how to use it. In this post we are going to explore how you can use the library operationally for a number of tasks. We will start with an example of using some of the command line tools included with the project for the arbitrary backdooring of files. Next we will look at using the library to backdoor a file programmatically. Finally we will use the bdf caplet with bettercap to backdoor some binaries being transmitted on the network, on-the-fly. I want to give a shout out to the homie Vyrus, as a lot of this was inspired by him but in non-public projects, so I can’t link to his stuff. I also want to give a shoutout to Awgh, as he’s been an awesome mentor and powerhouse in implementing a lot of the Binject features. Below you can see the binjection command line tool being used to backdoor an arbitrary windows PE, on Linux. In the next section we will explore some of the command line features of Binject.

Using the command line tools included with Binject is pretty straightforward; the main library Binject/binjection contains a command line interface tool that exposes all of the existing functionality for backdooring files on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Above we can see go-donut being used to turn a gscript program into position independent shellcode, then we use the binjection command line tool to backdoor a Windows PE (a .exe file), all on a Linux OS. The binjection cli tool takes 3 main command line flags, “-f” to specify the target file to backdoor, “-s” to specify a file containing your shellcode in a raw bytecode format, and “-o” specifying where to write your new backdoor file. Optionally you can give a “-l” to write the output to a logfile instead of standard out. You can also specify the injection method to use, although the tool only supports a very limited and mostly default set currently. The binjection cli tool will automatically detect the executable type and backdoor it accordingly. Another library and command line tool included with the framework is Binject/go-donut, which is essentially just a port of TheWover/donut. We can see this being used above to prepare another program to be embedded in our target executable. I really like both of these command line tools because it’s easy to cross compile them for linux or macOS, giving me a really convenient way to generate my target shellcode regardless of what OS I’m operating from. Having the entire tool chain in go allows me to easily move my tools to whatever operating system or use them all together in the same codebase. Even if you’re not familiar with go, you can just as easily compile the cli tools and script them together with something like bash or powershell. Below we can see the binjection cli tool being used to backdoor ELF executables on Linux.

Using binjection programmatically as a go library is also super simple and arguably far more useful because you can now integrate it into so many more projects. The library calls are just as straight forward, basically a single function call depending on the binary type your backdooring. Here we can see it as a standalone example for others to use. We can also see it being implemented here for Windows in Sliver, a golang based c2 framework with tons of features. We can also use binjection in gscript, although it requires this embarrassingly small shim interface. This is insanely powerful functionality to be able to ship in an implant binary, as the implant can now backdoor, already persisted, legitimate binaries on the target system. You can even break down the supporting libraries and use other parts of Binject, like Binject/debug, as a triage tool, which we demonstrate with bintriage. Finally, to bring the project full circle, Binject has been integrated with bettercap for the on-the-fly backdooring of files on the network. It currently accomplishes this using bettercap’s ARP spoofing module, the network proxy module, and a helper tool to manage the file queue, making the whole process really clean. Using the integration is easy with the Binject/backdoorfactory helper tool. Simply follow these usage instructions, which just involves installing all of the necessary prerequisite tools, and then Binject/backdoorfactory will spit out the caplet and command you need you need for bettercap. You can see a demo of all of this together in the video at the end. So now you have a pretty good idea of some different ways you can use Binject. We also encourage people to submit pull requests to the library with new injection methods or even further enumerating the executable types. There is still a lot of work to be done here but you can use the library currently to great effect.

PT_NOTE to PT_LOAD Injection in ELF

We’ve recently checked in a new injection method for ELF executables into binjection, based on the PT_NOTE segment. This method of infection is both really handy (read: easy to implement) and has a high success rate on ET_EXEC binaries without breaking the binary.

Understanding the techniques of binary injection is useful to both the penetration tester and the reverse engineer who is analyzing files for malware. For the pentester, having a common file such as /bin/ls execute arbitrary code each time it is run is useful in establishing and maintaining persistence. A reverse engineer who notices that an ELF binary has 3 PT_LOAD segments and no PT_NOTE segment can safely assume that the binary at the very least is suspect, and should be evaluated further.

The breakdown of the algorithm

Most ET_EXEC binaries (but not golang! [1]) have a PT_NOTE segment that can be entirely overwritten without affecting program execution. The same segment can also be transformed into a loadable segment, where executable instructions can be placed.

We will go through the algorithm next, step by step. If you need a primer on the basics of ELF files and their headers, read this article before proceeding. When you’re ready, open the binjection source code and follow along.


1. Open the ELF file to be injected:


2. Save the original entry point, e_entry:


3. Parse the program header table, looking for the PT_NOTE segment:


4. Convert the PT_NOTE segment to a PT_LOAD segment:


5. Change the memory protections for this segment to allow executable instructions:


6. Change the entry point address to an area that will not conflict with the original program execution.

We will use 0xc000000. Pick an address that will be sufficiently far enough beyond the end of the original program’s end so that when loaded it does not overlap. 0xc000000 will work on most executables, but to be safe you should check before choosing.


7. Adjust the size on disk and virtual memory size to account for the size of the injected code:


8. Point the offset of our converted segment to the end of the original binary, where we will store the new code:


9. Patch the end of the code with instructions to jump to the original entry point:


10. Add our injected code to the end of the file:


11. Write the file back to disk, over the original file:


-= We’re done! =-

Notes on system and interpreter differences of PT_NOTE

The ELF ABI specification doesn’t describe a way in which this segment must be used, therefore it is inevitable that the researcher will find binaries that use the NOTE segment in unique ways. These are sometimes system specific
(BSD varieties have a lot of possible notes), and sometimes original language specific, as in Go binaries.

Final Thoughts

PT_NOTE injection of ET_EXEC ELF binaries is a solid and tested method for the pentester. It is fast and relatively easy to implement, and will work on a high percentage of Linux binaries without modification to the algorithm.

It is probably the easiest of the injection algorithms to start out with, for those new to this area.

Understanding this method of injection is valuable to the budding reverse engineer, an easy red flag to look for in the first of many injection methods that you will encounter over time.

ELF injection is an art-form, and to people on either side of the aisle who enjoy this type of binary analysis and manipulation, the myriad of tricks to implement and detect these methods provide a vast playground with nearly
endless possibilities.

I hope that this article will be useful to those attempting to begin and advance their work in this area.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
— Buddhist quote

[1] golang binaries do a unique thing with the PT_NOTE segment. It contains data that must be present during execution, therefore this injection method will not work on them… more on this to follow…

Mach-O Universal / Fat Binaries

This is part two on our series on Mach-O executables, where in the first part we did a deep dive on the Mach-O file format. During the Apple-Intel transition, when they were moving from PowerPC to Intel x86_64 architecture, Apple came out with the Mach-O Universal Executable, a play on existing Fat binaries. This is one of the more interesting binaries types I’ve ever encountered. The Fat / Universal binary format acts as a wrapper for multiple Mach-O binaries of different architectures and CPU types. Meaning these binaries can run on multiple different architecture CPUs. Already having the ability to parse and write the Mach-O file structures, parsing the additional Fat headers is actually pretty simple. We’ve added both parsing and writing support for this file in our binject/debug library. Originally this was to include functionality for such 3rd party signing attacks as described in this set of posts. But legacy file types often contain many exploitable properties, and this file type may even be coming back as Apple is rumored to be moving to ARM CPUs from the Intel CPUs in the future, so let’s dig into the file format and learn some more.

Universal Binary Overview
A high level overview of a Fat / Universal Mach-O file is actually pretty simple, as the Fat headers simply act as a wrapper for the multiple Mach-O files contained within. While these can hold any number of Mach-O files within, on MacOS they are often found with two, being used to bridge between CPU transitions. Below we dive into what these Fat headers actually contain, but short to say it’s not too much. Here is an example of a Fat file structure that contains two Mach-O structures within one Universal file:

An example of the Fat / Universal Mach-O binary format

Universal Header
The Fat Mach-O file header starts with some special magic bytes, then moves on to a 4 byte arch size variable; the arch size is the length of the next dynamically sized section, the arch headers array, with one descriptor for each Mach-O structure contained within the Fat binary. Each arch header contains the same 5 properties, each 4 bytes in length. Each arch header contains the cpu and subcpu fields, which specify the architecture and cpu type the corresponding Mach-O file is for. When a Universal binary is loaded into memory this is what is checked to see what Mach-O file contained within should be loaded. Following that is the arch offset, arch size, and arch alignment, all of which specify where the corresponding Mach-O structure is located and how large it is.

N Mach-O Structures
Following the Fat binary header, there is a Mach-O structure for each of the corresponding arch headers. Each Mach-O file starts at it’s specified offset with large pads of 0 bytes between the headers and each respective Mach-O file. The Mach-O files themselves follow the exact structure outlined in the first post on Mach-Os, except for a slight difference between the reserved bytes (the i386 arch Mach-O binaries don’t seem to have the four reserved 0-bytes after the header). Simply put, these are normal Mach-O files.

Conclusion
This is an interesting file format that is still around on modern MacOS versions, and may even be coming back if Apple makes the move from Intel CPUs to ARM CPUs in the future. Ultimately, this is a pretty simple file format, but I think there is a lot of room for abuse here which we plan to experiment with in our Binjection library! Stop by soon for more interesting low level file format posts!

ahhh
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Introducing Symbol Crash

Welcome to the Symbol Crash repository of write-ups related to binary formats, injections, signing, and our group’s various projects. This all started as a revamp of the Backdoor Factory techniques and port to Go, so BDF functionality can be used as a shared library. It has since blossomed into something much more, a wellspring of cool research and a deep technical community. We recruited a number of passionate computer science and information security professionals along the way and decided to form this group to document our work. We also wanted to give back some of the neat things we were discovering and document some of the harder edge cases we came across in the process.

Most of our current projects live in the Binject organization on GitHub. We formed this blog mostly to discus the nuances of these projects and our lessons learned from these deep dives.

Binject
13 repositories, 107 followers.

We’ve divided the projects up into several libraries. These are as follows, with a short description of each:

debug
We have forked the debug/ folder from the standard library, to take direct control of the debug/elf, debug/macho, and debug/pe binary format parsers. To these parsers, we have added the ability to also generate executable files from the parsed intermediate data structures. This lets us load a file with debug parsers, make changes by interacting with the parser structures, and then write those changes back out to a new file.

shellcode
This library collects useful shellcode fragments and transforms for all platforms, similar to the functionality provided by msfvenom or internally in BDF, except as a Go library.

binjection
The Binjection library/utility actually performs an injection of shellcode into a binary. It automatically determines the binary type and format, and calls into the debug and shellcode libraries to actually perform the injection. Binjection includes multiple different injection techniques for each binary format.

bintriage
This utility is used as an extension of the debug library to provide more insight and debug information around specific binaries. It provides a verbose interface to enumerate and compare all of the features we parse in the binject/debug library.

forger
This is an experimental library to play with various binary specific code signing attacks.

We also plan to write a lot about low level file formats such as Elf, PE, Mach-O formats in the coming months, so def stop by and follow the blog for those updates. Finally, we are always looking for new members who want to join us on this journey of bits and documentation 🙂 If this resonates with you please reach out or comment.

ahhh
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