An Extended Guide on Runtime Crypters

Hello again, folks! I'm back with another (final) guide on runtime crypters which is an extension on my previous runtime crypter guide. If you have not read it yet, I highly recommend that you do since the fundamental theory of the PE format. Again, this will be a Windows-specific guide, so I'll repeat this: If you're a hater and cringe at the slightest sound of Microsoft's grotesque baby, feel free to close this tab, delete your history, exit your browser, pour some oil onto your machine and sanitize it with fire! Else, please continue onwards.

This advanced guide will be discussing a concept which has some relation to packing technology so if you're interested in that, this may serve as a really basic introduction. I currently do not know what this technique is called but don't worry, I will explain its method and procedure so if anyone knows what it's called, just put it down in the comment section below, or not, whatever you want... I will be putting up my source code if anyone wants to have a look at what's happening in the technical code viewpoint but since this is purely conceptual, please do not expect it to work on all applications and if you're using it to test malware, do not expect it to be undetectable. This means that I will not be running it under an active antivirus environment. (Sorry!).

Note: I am still currently learning more about this so if I happen to get any information incorrect, please leave a comment below or drop a message in my inbox and I will try to patch it ASAP.

Disclaimer: This is an article which shows how the runtime crypter works. It is meant to be a guide, not a tutorial so not every little piece of information will be provided.

Visualizing the PE Format

First, we will be analyzing the target file for our proof of concept, i.e. we will be using a Dark Comet client executable. Let's create one using the Dark Comet RAT and then analyze it.

Now let's see what it looks like using PEview to dissect it.

We can see all of the headers listed and each section as well. Great!

Creating a Concept

Step 1: Adding a New Section

First, we'll need to locate and point to the file offset of the new section header

Now we need to add in the section itself. Of course, there's nothing special to doing this, all we need to do is append our routine to the file. The section header will automagically register it.

All good!

Step 2:

Step 3:

To add this onto the file, just append it as I've mentioned before.

Easy? Maybe...?

Analyzing Our Modified File

First, let's build our modified file...

Let's try executing it normally...

Yep! Everything is working perfectly fine! Awesome!

Conclusion

Again, if you're confused, please do some more research - there's more than enough resources online for this. If you have not read my previous guide on runtime crypters, please do so since the theory of the PE format is explained (to some extent anyway) over there.

Hope you've all enjoyed this two-part series and have familiarized yourselves with different, very creative and magical PE manipulation! Thanks to those who have morally supported me during the development of this program! (I'm looking at you, dill_.) I'm not sure about what I'll write about next time, but I sure hope that it'll be as informative and interesting!

That's all folks!

dtm.

P.S. Oh, right, you're looking for the source code, yes? Well, I've delayed you long enough, just remember that it is purely proof-of-concept and will not work for all applications and certainly will not guarantee undetectable malware... Oh, and about comments, they're not too detailed as of writing this but I will certainly fix this issue!