1. ACTIVE DEFENSE Leveraging Threat Intelligence in the Enterprise
USING HBGARY’S
ACTIVE
DEFENSE

2. HBGary Enterprise software product company 7 years old
Experts on malicious software threats
Products:
Integrations:
Active Defense
Digital DNA™ (patent pending)
Responder
Recon
FastDump
EnCase Enterprise
McAfee ePO

3. Evolving Risk
Most intellectual property and valuable data is stored online digitally within the Enterprise
Attackers are motivated and well funded
Cyber-weapons work, existing security solutions don’t, end of story.

4. Security Efficacy Curve
Efficacy is rising
DDNA
Detecting more than not (> 50%)
ZERO KNOWLEDGE DETECTION RATE
Detecting very little
Signatures
And scaling issue getting worse

5. HBGary’s Approach Focus on malicious behavior, not signatures
There are only so many ways to do something bad on a Windows machine
Bad guys don’t write 50,000 new malware every morning
Their techniques, algorithms, and protocols stay the same, day in day out
Once executing in physical memory, the software is just software
Physmem is the best information source available

6. The Big Picture
Detect bad guys using a smallish genome of behaviors – and this means zeroday and APT – no signatures required
Followup with strong incident response technology, enterprise scalable
Back this with very low level & sophisticated deep-dive capability for attribution and forensics work

7. Active Defense Detect Advanced Malware & Persistent Threat
No prior knowledge of the threat required
Powered by Digital DNA™
Obtain actionable intelligence
Registry keys & files
URL’s used for communication
Actionable = make your existing investment more effective
- Detect & block at the network perimeter
IDS signatures, egress firewalls
- Clean machines of infection
Ideal: No re-image costs

8. The Power of Action Using Responder + REcon, HBGary was able to trace
Aurora malware and obtain actionable intel in about 5 minutes.
This intel was then used to create an inoculation shot,
downloaded over 10,000 times over a few days time.
To automatically attempt a clean operation:
*******************************************
InoculateAurora.exe -range clean

9. Active Defense Use regkeys and files is possible to
Detection of unknown threats
Obtain actionable intelligence
Update IDS and egress, detect & block
Clean machines
Remission Monitoring
Use regkeys and files is possible to
Clean infection without re-image
Use URL’s, IP’s, and protocol strings

10. A different team of humans
Large Govt. Customer
Proventia IDS
alerts
Team of Humans
alerts we care about
Remote memory snapshots, DDNA, Responder
A different team of humans
IF infected=true
Image box with EnCase
Include malware data in report
Update Proventia IDS

11. Large Energy Company (I)
WebSense
Detected compromised VPN server
alerts
Query: “Find admin_epo interactive logins”
Manual Log Analysis revealed compromised account
RawVolume.File Where
Path
contains
Documents and Settings\admin_epo
Compromised account was admin_epo
- Domain admin privs
Look for a known file path that indicates account was used for an interactive logon
Scan for interactive logons of the admin_epo account
~800 server machines
12 compromised servers detected, apprx 1 hour later

12. Large Energy Company (II)
Find indicators of compromise
EnCase
EnCase used to scan filesystems:
Found suspicious DLL in temp directory
Found Cain and Abel password sniffer
12 server machines
Find indicators of compromise
Active Defense
Query: “Find logger.dll”
Thousands of machines
RawVolume.File Where
BinaryData
contains
“logontype: %s”
Query: “Find cain password sniffer”
RawVolume.File Where
Path
equals
%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\drivers\winpcap.sys
Query: “Find logger.dll in memory”
Physmem.Process Where
BinaryData
contains
“logontype: %s”
Found machines are re-imaged user account passwords were reset.

13. Alert!

14. Hmm..

15. Active Defense Queries
What happened?
What is being stolen?
How did it happen?
Who is behind it?
How do I bolster network defenses?

16. Active Defense Queries

17. Active Defense Queries
QUERY: “detect use of password hash dumping”
Physmem.BinaryData CONTAINS PATTERN “B[a-fA-F0-9]{32}:B[a-fA-F0-9]{32}“
QUERY: “detect deleted rootkit”
(RawVolume.File.Name = “mssrv.sys“ OR RawVolume.File.Name = “acxts.sys“)
AND RawVolume.File.Deleted = TRUE
QUERY: “detect chinese password stealer”
LiveOS.Process.BinaryData CONTAINS PATTERN “LogonType: %s-%s“
QUERY: “detect malware infection san diego”
LiveOS.Module.BinaryData CONTAINS PATTERN “.aspack“ OFFSET < 1024 OR
RawVolume.File.BinaryData CONTAINS PATTERN “.aspack“ OFFSET < 1024
No NDA no Pattern…

18. Enterprise Systems Digital DNA for McAfee ePO
Digital DNA for HBGary Active Defense
Digital DNA for Guidance EnCase Enterprise
Digital DNA for Verdaysys Digital Guardian
Traditional methods to analyze memory and malware are difficult. It requires expertise, is time consuming and expensive, and it doesn’t scale. 18

19. Integration with McAfee ePO
Responder
Professional
ePO
Console
ePO
Server
ePO
Agents
(Endpoints)
DDNA is automatically installed across the enterprise by ePO. We give a ePO a couple of zip files. ePO installs HBGary code onto the ePO server and onto each endpoint. The ePO scheduler tells DDNA when to run on each endpoint. We run, examine memory, create DDNA alerts, hand the alerts and traits to the ePO agent which sends them to the ePO SQL server. The DDNA alerts are displayed on the ePO console. DDNA is not installed as an agent. It is a command line utility that loads runs when ePO tells it to. After executing DDNA exits memory. ePO’s AV, firewall and HIDS runs 24x7 as a service. DDNA runs at a point in time to find malware.
Schedule
SQL
Events
HBG Extension
HBGary DDNA

21. Fuzzy Search

22. Digital DNA™

23. Digital DNA™ Automated malware detection
Software classification system
5000 software and malware behavioral traits
Example
Huge number of key logger variants in the wild
About 10 logical ways to build a key logger

24. Digital DNA™ Benefits = Better cyber defense
Enterprise detection of zero-day threats
Lowers the skill required for actionable response
What files, keys, and methods used for infection
What URL’s, addresses, protocols, ports
“At a glance” threat assessment
What does it steal? Keystrokes? Bank Information? Word documents and powerpoints?
= Better cyber defense

25. Digital DNA™ Performance
4 gigs per minute, thousands of patterns in parallel, NTFS raw disk, end node
2 gig memory, 5 minute scan, end node
Hi/Med/Low throttle
= 10,000 machine scan completes in < 1 hour

26. Under the hood
These images show the volume of decompiled information produced by the DDNA engine. Both malware use stealth to hide on the system. To DDNA, they read like an open book.

27. Ranking Software Modules by Threat Severity Software Behavioral Traits
Digital DNA™
Ranking Software Modules by Threat Severity
0B 8A C2 05 0F F B ED C D
8A C2
Malware shows up as a red alert. Suspicious binaries are orange. For each binary we show its underlying behavioral traits. Examples of traits might be “packed with UPX”, “uses IRC to communicate”, or “uses kernel hooking with may indicate a presence of a rootkit”. The blue bar shows the Digital DNA sequence for the binary iimo.sys.
0F 51
0F 64
Software Behavioral Traits

28. B[00 24 73 ??]k ANDS[>004] C”QueueAPC”{arg0:0A,arg}
What’s in a Trait?
04 0F 51
B[ ??]k ANDS[>004] C”QueueAPC”{arg0:0A,arg}
The rule is a specified like a regular expression, it matches against automatically reverse engineered details and contains boolean logic. These rules are considered intellectual property and not shown to the user.
Unique hash code
Weight / Control flags
The trait, description, and underlying rule are held in a database

29. Digital DNA™ (in Memory) vs
Digital DNA™ (in Memory) vs. Disk Based Hashing, Signatures, and other schematic approaches

30. White listing on disk doesn’t prevent malware from being in memory
Internet Document
PDF, Active X, Flash
Office Document, Video, etc…
DISK FILE
IN MEMORY IMAGE
Public Attack-kits have used memory-only injection for
over 5 years
OS Loader
White listing on disk doesn’t prevent malware from being in memory
MD5 Checksum
is white listed
Whitelisting typically works by have a list of good hashes with the assumption that you’re loading only good binaries for execution into memory. But bad code can get injected into good programs. White listing does not mean secure code. DDNA will find the bad injected code.
White listed code does not mean secure code
Process is trusted

31. Digital DNA defeats packers
IN MEMORY IMAGE
Packer #1
Packer #2
Decrypted
Original
OS Loader
Digital DNA defeats packers
Starting Malware
As you know most malware is packed. The bad guy does this to avoid detection. For every packer used, you need another signature. But a program must unpack itself in memory to execute. Its underlying behaviors remain the same, so its DDNA remains the same.
Packed
Malware
Digital DNA remains consistent

32. Same malware compiled in three different ways
DISK FILE
IN MEMORY IMAGE
Same malware compiled in three different ways
OS Loader
If the same malware is compiled e different ways you would need 3 different hashes or signatures to see it. DDNA still detects because the program is logically the same and has the same behaviors.
MD5 Checksums
all different
Digital DNA remains consistent

33. Responder

34. HBGary Responder Professional
Standalone system for incident response
Memory forensics
Malware reverse engineering
Static and dynamic analysis
Digital DNA module
REcon module

35. Responder Professional

36. REcon

37. REcon
Records the entire lifecycle of a software program, from first instruction to the last.
It records data samples at every step, including arguments to functions and pointers to
objects.
Offline physical memory analysis:
Rebuilding windows without windows
All physical to virtual address translations

38. Advanced Discussion: How HBGary maintains DDNA with Threat Intelligence

39. Partnership Feed Agreements
Intelligence Feed
Partnership Feed Agreements
Feed Processor
Machine Farm
Meta Data
Sources
Digital DNA

40. From raw data to intelligence
Malware Analysis
Feed Processor
Responder
Active Defense
Data Integration
Meta Data
Link Analysis
Stalker
primary
Digital DNA
Palantir
Stats

41. Ops path Malware Attack Tracking Digital DNA™ Active Threat Tracking
Mr. A
Mr. B
Mr. C
Malware Attack Tracking
Digital DNA™
Active Threat Tracking
Detect relevant attacks in progress. Determine the scope of the attack.
Focus is placed on
Botnet / Web / Spam Distribution systems
Potentially targeted spear/whalefishing
Internal network infections at customer sites
Development idioms are fingerprinted.
Malware is classified into attribution domains. Special attention is placed on:
Specialized attacks
Targeted attacks
Newly emergent methods
Determine the person(s) operating the attack, and their intent:
Leasing Botnet / Spam
Financial Fraud
Identity Theft
Pump and Dump
Targeted Threat
& Documents Theft Intellectual Property Theft
Deeper penetration

42. Malware sequenced every 24 hours

43. Over 5,000 Traits are categorized into Factor, Group, and Subgroup.
This is our “Genome”

44. Country of Origin Country of origin
Is the bot designed for use by certain nationality?
Geolocation of IP is NOT a strong indicator
However, there are notable examples
Is the IP in a network that is very unlikely to have a third-party proxy installed?
For example, it lies within a government installation
C&C map from Shadowserver, C&C for 24 hour period

45. C&C server source code.
Written in PHP
Specific “Hello” response (note, can be queried from remote to fingerprint server)
Clearly written in Russian
In many cases, the authors make no attempt to hide…. You can purchase many kits and just read the source code…

46. A GIF file included in a C&C server package.

47. GhostNet: Screen Capture Algorithm
Loops, scanning every 50th line (cY) of the display.
Reads screenshot data, creates a special DIFF buffer
LOOP: Compare new screenshot to previous, 4 bytes at a time
If they differ, enter secondary loop here, writing a ‘data run’ for as long as there is no match.
Offset in screenshot
Len in bytes
Data….

48. ‘SoySauce’ C&C Hello Message
this queries the uptime of the machine..
checks whether it's a laptop or desktop machine...
enumerates all the drives attached to the system, including USB and network...
gets the windows username and computername...
gets the CPU info... and finally,
the version and build number of windows.

49. Aurora C&C parser
Command is stored as a number, not text. It is checked here.
Each individual command handler is clearly visible below the numerical check
After the command handler processes the command, the result is sent back to the C&C server

50. Link Analysis We want to find a connection here C&C Fingerprint
Botmaster
URL artifact
Affiliate ID
Developer
Protocol Fingerprint
Endpoints
Developer
C&C products

51. Example: Link Analysis with Palantir™
Implant
Forensic Toolmark specific to Implant
Searching the ‘Net reveals source code that leads to Actor
Actor is supplying a backdoor
Group of people asking for technical support on their copies of the backdoor

52. Questions?