Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look into Windows NT source code that was leaked. The if-else/switch statements in there is just another level of string matching hell. Seems like software development just become "let's jerry rig it to just make it work and forget about it." Pretty sure management (without tech clue) have something to do behaviours like this.
> Pretty sure management (without tech clue) have something to do behaviours like this. Always the same bullshit with you people here. Could never possibly someone built a sub-optimal system -- it HAD to be management fucking with our good intentions!
Cyber Scarecrow
201–210 of 253 posts
Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#202Why does malware “stop” if it sees AV? Sounds as if it wanted to live, which is absurd. A shady concept overall, cause if you occasionally run malware on your pc, it’s already over. Downloading a random exe from a noname site/author to scare malware sounds like another crazy security recipe from your layman tech friend who installs registry cleaners and toggles random settings for “speed up”.
> Why does malware “stop” if it sees AV? Sounds as if it wanted to live, which is absurd. Malware authors add in this feature so that it’s harder for researchers to figure out how it works. They want to make reverse engineering their code more difficult. I agree with everything else you said.
If these were laypeople that would then give up, sure.
But I'm surprised that it's even worth malware authors' time to put in these checks. I can't imagine there's even a single case of where it stopped malware researchers in the end. What, so it takes the researchers a few hours or a couple of days longer? Why would malware authors even bother?
(What I can understand is malware that will spread through as many types of systems as possible, but only "activate" the bad behavior on a specific type of system. But that's totally different -- a whitelist related to its intended purpose, not a blacklist to avoid security researchers.)
Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#203Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#204Isn't the risk then that they'll first start scanning for "Scarecrow", or is that hidden somehow? Also somewhat surprised the source isn't available. That makes trusting it harder, especially to the people it's aimed at.
If you start down this path you will end up in mindgame hell.
Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#205I don't understand why the software is built how it's built. Why would you want to implement licensing in the future for a software product that only creates fake processes and registry keys from a list: https://pastebin.com/JVZy4U5i . The limitation to 3 processes and license dialog make me feel uncomfortable using the software. All the processes are 14.1MB in size (and basically the scarecrow_process.dll - https://…
To your point, I made this a few years ago using powershell. I just created a stub .exe using csc on install and renamed it to match a similar list of binary names. Maybe I will dig it up...
Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
This looks like a random website and not a Microsoft website. How could I trust such list?
Because it came from this site: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/trusted-root/part... I used Google to search for "list of microsoft trusted CA".
Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
This works, I can confirm. Majority of malware threat running in a VM as a sign of researcher doing the malware analysis. I am recommending doing this for over 10 years now.
That's where I wonder about a tool like this interfering with legitimate software. For example, I believe the anti-cheat software used by games like Fortnite looks for similar things -- my understanding is that it, too, will refuse to start when it is executing in a VM[0]. As a teenager (90s), I remember several applications/games refusing to start when I'd attached a tracing process to them. They did this to stop ex…
Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#208Kind of like instead of buying $10k ADT home security system, just buy the sign for $20 and put it in the front yard.
Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#209Re: Cyber Scarecrow
#210Krebs said that some malware checks for a cyrillic keyboard to try and geo target outside of the country of operation. This seems to be the same type of thing. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/05/try-this-one-weird-trick...