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Labs

Anti-Analysis: Analyzing Smokeloader

In this lab, you'll practice reverse engineering and defeating anti-analysis techniques in low-level languages (C / ASM). When you're finished with this lab, you'll have an understanding for how malware mangles, manipulates, and prevents disassembly and debugging through certain techniques. You'll also identify what these techniques look like through reverse engineering and how to remove/patch them to complete your analysis.

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Labs

Path Info

Level
Clock icon Beginner
Duration
Clock icon 1h 30m
Published
Clock icon Oct 30, 2024

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Getting Started in the Lab Environment

    Here are the initial instructions and explanation of the lab environment. Read this while your environment is busy creating itself from nothing. Yes, this violates physics; we know. How fun!

  2. Challenge

    Initial Extraction (Stage 1)

    SmokeLoader is a advanced sample that contains several embedded payloads. Our goal for this first challenge is to identify the first stage of shellcode and extract it.

  3. Challenge

    Stage 2

    This challenge will focus on debugging the extracted shellcode from Stage1 and extracting the heavily obfuscated Stage2 shellcode stub. This version of SmokeLoader contains two different shellcode stubs that perform the decryption and loading of Stage2 into memory.

  4. Challenge

    Final Stage

    We will focus on the final two stages of SmokeLoader in this challenge. The heavily obfuscated Stage2 shellcode with opaque predicates, encrypted functions and anti-debugging techniques. Then, we will be extracting the final Stage3 shellcode and extracting its RC4 encrypted configuration.

  5. Challenge

    The Last Challenge

    Welcome to the final challenge! This is your last chance to experiment in the environment. Clicking Finish Lab will end this little world that flittered into existence just for you.

Aaron Diaz has worked primarily as a government contractor working with different branches of the military and government agencies. Aaron has worked as a Threat Hunter, Malware Reverse Engineer, Software Developer, and a Penetration tester. He is passionate about reverse engineering software and all things related to offensive security (malware/exploit development). During his tenure on a Threat Hunting team, he became the lead Malware Reverse Engineer. This sparked a love for understanding how APTs develop their malware and the creativity of their designs. Currently, Aaron is a penetration tester working with a small team specializing in reverse engineering and exploit development. Aaron is the founder and CEO of Elusive Threat Research, specializing in offensive and defensive research for sophisticated threats.

What's a lab?

Hands-on Labs are real environments created by industry experts to help you learn. These environments help you gain knowledge and experience, practice without compromising your system, test without risk, destroy without fear, and let you learn from your mistakes. Hands-on Labs: practice your skills before delivering in the real world.

Provided environment for hands-on practice

We will provide the credentials and environment necessary for you to practice right within your browser.

Guided walkthrough

Follow along with the author’s guided walkthrough and build something new in your provided environment!

Did you know?

On average, you retain 75% more of your learning if you get time for practice.