Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel by Greg Hoglund, Jamie Butler

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Install a rootkit on someone’s system, and you own it. Not just now: indefinitely, because rootkits are virtually undetectable. Their power and stealthiness may make them the most dangerous form of malware ever created. You’d think you’d have heard more about them, but very few people really understand rootkit technology. To become one of them, read Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel.

For years, the best way to learn about rootkits has been to take Greg Hoglund and James Butler’s course at Black Hat, the legendary annual hacker event. Now, for those who can’t make it to Vegas, Hoglund and Butler have organized their unique knowledge into this book. Notwithstanding its title, its principles apply to any operating system, including Linux and Unix. The authors focus on kernel rootkits, the hardest kind to detect. While it’s written primarily from an attacker’s perspective, it’ll be valuable to attackers, defenders, and researchers alike.

The authors first explain what rootkits are (and aren’t), and how they typically function. You’ll walk through the basic steps involved in writing a Windows rootkit; then understand the hardware mechanisms that work behind the scenes to enforce security and memory access: mechanisms attackers must evade or corrupt.

You’ll master both approaches to maintaining uninterrupted, hidden access to a computer: altering its operating system’s execution path, or directly manipulating kernel objects to attack stored information about processes, drivers, or network connections. Along the way, Hoglund and Butler cover hooking, runtime patching, layered drivers, covert channels, and much more. They conclude with today’s best countermeasures: systematic ways to search for hooks, detect suspicious behavior, and reveal hidden files, registry keys, or processes. Bill Camarda, from the September 2005 Read Only

From the Publisher

Rootkits are the ultimate backdoor, giving hackers ongoing and virtually undetectable access to the systems they exploit. Now, two of the world's leading experts have written the first comprehensive guide to rootkits: what they are, how they work, how to build them, and how to detect them. Rootkit.com's Greg Hoglund and James Butler created and teach Black Hat's legendary course in rootkits. In this book, they reveal never-before-told offensive aspects of rootkit technology--learn how attackers can get in and stay in for years, without detection.

In Rootkits: Subverting the Windows Kernel, the authors show exactly how to subvert the Windows XP and Windows 2000 kernels, teaching concepts that are easily applied to virtually any modern operating system, from Windows Server 2003 to Linux and UNIX. Using extensive downloadable examples, they teach rootkit programming techniques that can be used for a wide range of software, from white hat security tools to operating system drivers and debuggers.

After reading this book, readers will be able to

• Understand the role of rootkits in remote command/control and software eavesdropping
• Build kernel rootkits that can make processes, files, and directories invisible
• Master key rootkit programming techniques, including hooking, runtime patching, and directly manipulating kernel objects
• Work with layered drivers to implement keyboard sniffers and file filters
• Establish covert channels for retaining control over systems with installed rootkits
• Detect rootkits and built host-based intrusion prevention software that resists rootkit attacks
• Discover legitimaterootkits by law enforcement and security organizations

Slashdot.org

Rootkits is an invaluable contribution in the wider understanding of advanced attack and hacker techniques. Previously, much of this material was known to only a handful of people, and assembling your own knowledge base was difficult.... If you're interested in learning how to write your own rootkit or detect someone else's rootkit on your system, you should definitely start with this book.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0321294319
  
• ISBN-13: 9780321294319
• Format: Paperback, 352pp
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley
• Pub. Date: July 2005
• Sales Rank: 154,816
• Series: Addison-Wesley Software Security Series

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

A rootkit is the set of programs and code that allow a permanent and undetectable presence on a computer.

Historical Background

We became interested in rootkits because of our professional work in computer security, but the pursuit of the subject quickly expanded into a personal mission (a.k.a., late nights and weekends). This led Hoglund to found rootkit.com, a forum devoted to reverse engineering and rootkit development. Both of us are deeply involved with rootkit.com. Butler first contacted Hoglund online through this Web site because Butler had a new and powerful rootkit called 'FU' that needed testing. Butler sent Hoglund some source code and a pre-compiled binary. However, by accident, he did not send Hoglund the source code to the kernel driver. To Butler's amazement, Hoglund just loaded the pre-compiled rootkit on his workstation without question, and reported back that 'FU' seemed to be working fine! Our trust in one another has only grown since then.

Both of us have long been driven by an almost perverse need to reverse-engineer the Windows kernel. It's like when someone says we can't do something--then we accomplish it. It is very satisfying learning how so-called 'computer security' products work and finding ways around them. This inevitably leads to better protection mechanisms. Just because a product claims to provide some level of protection does not necessarily mean that it does. By playing the part of an attacker, we are always at an advantage. As the attacker we must think of only one thing that a defender didn't think of. Yet, as defenders we must think of every possible thing an attacker might do. The numbers work in the attacker'sfavor.

We teamed up a few years ago to offer the training class 'Offensive Aspects of Rootkit Technology.' This training started as a single day of material that since has grown into hundreds of pages of notes and example code. The material for the class is what eventually became the foundation for this book. Now, we offer the rootkit training class several times a year at the Black Hat security conference, and also privately.

After training for a while, we decided to deepen our relationship, and we now work together at HBGary, Inc. At HBGary, we tackle very complex rootkit problems on a daily basis. In this book, we use our experience to cover the threats that face Windows users today and only appear to be increasing in the future.

Introduction

Target Audience

This book is intended for those who are interested in computer security and want a truer perspective concerning security threats. A lot has been written on how intruders gain access to computer systems but little has been said regarding what can happen once an intruder gains that initial access. Like the title implies, this book will cover what an intruder can do to cover her presence on a compromised machine.

We believe that most software vendors, including Microsoft, do not take rootkits seriously. That is why we are publishing this book. The material in this book is not groundbreaking for someone who has worked with rootkits or operating systems for years--but for most people this book should prove that rootkits are a serious threat. It should prove that your virus scanner or desktop firewall is never good enough. It should prove that a rootkit can get into your computer and stay there for years, and you will never know about it.

To best convey rootkit information we wrote most of this book from an attacker's perspective; however, we end the book on a defensive posture. As you begin to learn your attackers' goals and techniques, you will begin to learn your own system's weaknesses and how to mitigate its shortcomings. Reading this book will help you improve the security of your system or help you make informed decisions when it comes to purchasing security software.

Prerequisites

As all of the code samples are written in C, you will gain more insight if you already understand basic C concepts--the most important one being pointers. If you have no programming knowledge, you should still be able to follow along and understand the threats without needing to understand the particular implementation details. Some areas of the book draw on principles from the Windows device driver architecture, but experience writing device drivers is not required. We will walk you through writing your first Windows device driver and build from there.

Scope

This book covers Windows rootkits, although most of the concepts apply to other operating systems as well, such as LINUX. We focus on kernel rootkits because these are the most difficult to detect. Many public rootkits for Windows are userland rootkits because these are the easiest to implement since they do add the complexity of understanding how the undocumented kernel works. This book is not about specific real-world rootkits--but instead teaches the generic approaches used by all rootkits. In each chapter, we introduce the basic technique, explain its goals, and show how it's implemented using code examples. Armed with this information, you should be able to expand the examples in a million different ways to perform a variety of tasks. When working in the kernel, you are really limited only by your imagination.

You can download most of the code in this book from rootkit.com. Throughout the book, we will reference the particular URL for an individual example. Other rootkit authors also publish research at rootkit.com, which you may find useful to keep up with the latest discoveries.

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