Reversing WannaCry Part 1 - Finding the killswitch and unpacking the malware in

Part 2 is out! • Reversing WannaCry Par...
In this first video of the "Reversing WannaCry" series we will look at the infamous killswitch and the installation and unpacking procedure of WannaCry.
Twitter: / ghidraninja
Links:
- Interview with MalwareTech: / s3-episode-11-wannacry...
- MalwareTech's blogpost about the killswitch: www.malwaretec...
Further reading
- Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.o...
- LogRhythm Analysis: logrhythm.com/...
- Secureworks Analysis: www.securework...

[@_a_x_s_]

Reverse engineering enhances the understanding of both programming thought and skills. This video is easy to follow, and the main techniques of reverse engineering are shown clearly, which makes me want to decompile a small interesting program to analyze it.

[@wanderingpalace]

安笑生 yeah we can learn programming from reverse engineering stuffs 你好同志

[@r0x304]

lol

[@ADeeSHUPA]

@@wanderingpalace 安笑生

[@gameacc6079]

@@wanderingpalace i love xi jinping's huge cawk

[@muth69]

@@wanderingpalace no you absolutely can't

[@SouravTechLabs]

Looks like Ghidra is a very good renaming tool!

[@vladysmaximov6156]

I prefer ollydbg 2.01 or x64dbg for 64 bit, ghidra makes really easy the reverse process, can get a source code... I prefer analyze asm instructions one by one for understand fully process but this isn't the best stategy.. one by one can take you a lot of time i use call stack window for locate specific part i want to analyze!

[@aasquared8191]

@@vladysmaximov6156 keep us posted mate

[@Luzum]

@@vladysmaximov6156 weird flex but ok

[@madghostek3026]

@@vladysmaximov6156 I tried out ghidra and improved my performance like 10 times (mainly due to being shit in reading asm fast).

[@jonarmani8654]

@@vladysmaximov6156 You absolute pleb. Version 1.10 or GTFO.

[@lynx5327]

I'm a vegetable that doesn't understand anything but this was an interesting video

[@GamerTheTurtle]

@@ayylmaoglow takes one to know one! unless you're a reptilian

[@ThisDaveAndThatJohn]

read the book Code by Charles Petzold. You will understand how the CPU and assembler works even if you are a total noob. After that you will automatically understand how programming languages work, reverse engineering too and so on.

[@ThisDaveAndThatJohn]

@Rajath Pai trust me. Petzold is a guru

[@zxxczczczcz]

@@ThisDaveAndThatJohn code by charles petzold?

[@HimanshuPal-li7nj]

Ok BOOMER

[@l2ubio]

"Microsoft security center (2.0) sevice" LMAO

[@_nit]

Wow that was probably one of the best descriptive reverse engineering videos I've seen to date. Your method of explaining and showcasing each step in each function is fantastic and even explaining how to identify when disassemblers/decompilers mess up and how to fix them. Bravo. I'm upset that I waited this long to actually start watching these videos.

[@vasilysu]

Fully agree, amazing video! Simple step by step explanation is excellent!

[@tomasviane3844]

I didn't understand anything of what you did, but the casualness of explaining something so exoticly complicated drew me in.

[@MrMasterRhythm]

Love this! Please create a series of Reverse Engineering Basics!

[@oliviasmith4680]

Yes

[@MattZelda]

Just gotta learn GDB, Radare, OllyDBG for Windows, and assembly. And even then the assembly is the part that while takes the longest isn't too bad once you get used to it.

[@MattZelda]

Oh and IDA / Binary Ninja are good too.

[@i-use-arch-btw3954]

WannaCry: exists Ghidra: im about to end this mans whole carrer

[@xyphoes345]

what the H E C C is a carrer

[@glowingone1774]

@@xyphoes345 it's a carrer

[@xyphoes345]

@@glowingone1774 isnt it meant to be a *career* tho

[@glowingone1774]

@@xyphoes345 no this is much different.

[@quaintfalopa9724]

but wannacry isnt a man

[@John0123.]

You know too many things. You explain it too casually like it's food lmao. This guy be like: Ok, let me present you my house.

[@lionkor98]

hijacking this to say WE NEED PART 2

[@User-ko3un]

Inserts his too powerful(smart) to be kept alive meme*

[@acc373r4t0r]

looks pretty standard to me

[@NanoValorant]

Plot twist: he is the hacker who made wanna cry

[@brunph6174]

marv b first 20 minutes is really basic stuff. Its just general reversing and assigning names

[@TheDankTiel]

I understood everything except for the renaming parts. Meaning i did not understand a thing. Cool vid tho, you've earned a sub!

[@andrasfogarasi5014]

Reading the WannaCry warning, the creaters were real lads, providing multiple languages, information about BitCoin and a contact method. They just sound incredibly kind.

[@gabe6278]

tbh, i think they knew that they would affect millions of devices. humble people

[@SteppingStonevlogs]

Kind, maybe not, but they were reasonable. Do as we ask and we promise all will be well. And see we have written in clear language what we want you to understand. Give us the money and have a nice day 😊

[@kahlzun]

professionals have *standards*

[@hiddenaether]

cant get money from someone who cant understand what they are reading

[@ryannorthup3148]

@@kahlzun Investigations show that this was most likely an attack by the North-Korean Government-Controlled Lazarus hacking group to fund nuclear programs and Fatass Jong Un's Sanction-Bypassing Goldschlager run. Eh, probably not Goldschlager. The fatass is probably going for something more expensive.

[@traida111]

The thing that blew my mind the most, was the list of language translations you found in the passworded zip. Made me realize how much they really scaled this thing to take on the world. Absolute savage. Who ever did this was well organized. Do you ever wonder if they watched this video?

[@hiddenaether]

they make locale translators for batch translating, prob took them about 5 minutes to translate all locales. The least impressive part

[@traida111]

@@hiddenaether then why hide it with such levels of encryption? it would be easy to just use english, but instead they have the ambition to take on the world.

[@saadeddhaher1706]

everyone: try not downloading files from entrusted places!!! Ghidra: let's unpack the malware !

[@naxzed_it]

@starshipeleven He could use a VM.

[@brunoeilhart8516]

What is an entrusted place?

[@fatfr0g570]

starshipeleven presumably you download the sample from within the VM, then disable the Ethernet adapter that gives the VM Internet access to prevent worms from going through the connection.

[@fatfr0g570]

starshipeleven forgot about that option, thanks for reminding me.

[@yaelm631]

Just something that scares me : They are easy accessible websites to download loads of virus to try antivirus and understanding how they work ? I hope they tell the user several warnings before sending the file

[@Elffi]

Ghidra: *does windows reverse engineering in iOS* Windows: "Am I a joke to you?"

[@rohitas2050]

macOS*

[@Elffi]

@@rohitas2050 woops

[@Juppie902]

more like Reclass: Am I a Joke to you ?

[@smwfreak1647]

@@Elffi LOL

[@ThoughtinFlight]

This was SUPER interesting and well made, please continue! You left us on a cliffhanger!

[@rubenco1253]

I am currently doing my bachelor in Computer Science and didn't know this reverse engineering even existed! Very cool and very nicely explained. Showing the keyboard output is also a nice addition of you! Thanks :)

[@elijahburnham7882]

RubenCO what language is this in?

[@Slenderman63323]

@@elijahburnham7882 The left side of Ghidra is x86 Assembly and the right side is C.

[@hjrgf]

​@@Slenderman63323you need low level knowledge to be able to do stuff like this since the c code that is outputed is very low level

[@georgedomse]

Just wow. Impressive job! I hope you are employed by one of the major tech/AV companies.

[@funnypallu]

I am just happy that there are people out there who understand stuff like this! 😅

[@BernhardMillauer]

That was very insightful! I'm a software developer/architect for 17 years now and I must say that you have a very nice way to tell details and to guide your audience. thank you very much! for the follow up video I would like to see the "physical" impact of the malware, like show the registry-key or the installation folder to make it more understandable for non-developers.

[@not_glad]

I have a few questions. I've done vb coding for years, but more as a supplement to my other work loads, I'm not a full blown dev. First, what was so hard about spotting the kill switch? There must have been a lot of the best devs looking at this code globally for 4 days, the guy who killed it even did that on accident. Secondly, and I'm not advocating for better viruses, but would a kill switch that the owner had exclusive controle over not be possible? They went to great lengths coding this but left the kill switch free for anyone to use.

[@blancomation554]

subbed, 22 minutes passed like a breeze

[@bekircandal3528]

Subbed instantly.Cant wait for another episodes.

[@THExBOSSxKSA]

I'm so happy that KZbin recommended this video to me. Keep up the good work! Waiting for part 2..

[@stacksmashing]

Hopefully tomorrow :) life has been busy

[@anuragC819]

KZbin algo has done it again. Could understand probably 1% of what was talked about, but it seemed very interesting. Subscribed!

[@ImXyper]

imagine doing this and accidentally running wannacry. i would actually scream

[@watema3381]

**laughs in multiple VMs running in Arch Linux** i use arch btw

[@bigbythebigbadwolf8612]

@@watema3381 no one cares

[@watema3381]

@@bigbythebigbadwolf8612 aparently you do cause you replied! also (incase you haven't noticed), it's an inside joke

[@bigbythebigbadwolf8612]

@@watema3381 still no one cares

[@bigbythebigbadwolf8612]

@@medo7dody ur prob crying behind ur screen: i dont care either but i gotta be an edgy loser so i can prove this guy wrong

[@weaver3636]

I honestly didn't understand a single thing but I still appreciate the video, so thanks for sharing this. I wonder who was behind the attack. It pisses me off there was nothing I could do to help when it happened to my relatives.

[@fatfr0g570]

It might be finger pointing, but the US, UK, and Australia claimed that North Korea was behind the attack.

[@hiddenaether]

@@fatfr0g570 they formally asserted its origin as North Korea, the only 2 instruction pages not machine translated were english and chinese. more interestingly, the developers computers had Korean font families installed and build stamps indicated their timezone.

[@BGroothedde]

Amazing video, very good to follow and it helped me a lot with some frustrating 'features' in Ghidra. I found I was using the disassembler window more than the decompilation window because of weird decompilation results - you helped me understand getting better decompilation results by adjusting Ghidra's interpretation of some code. Thanks!

[@stacksmashing]

That's awesome to hear, thank you! Feel free to let me know what else you have trouble with, maybe it's something I can feature in the future

[@BGroothedde]

@@stacksmashing I'll be sure to comment it when I find more stuff, but seeing you work already solves a lot of problems!

[@manuellopes1269]

@@stacksmashing greaat tut, can please explain if possible im chrome devtools save the changes i make in offline? i want change a pwa web worker app that works online and offline but the changes i made nolt save when i restart the app, exist any trick to save?if i not save i only get the cache of pwa app and not possible open and edit i think, thanks

[@i3130002]

Man, I used to debug exe using ollydebug and you are taking it to another level 🤯

[@WindBringsMemories]

Nice tutorials man! Maybe some basics for reverse engineering video's in Ghidra would be great as well! Like explaining how the system works and what each action truly means :). But it's great :) Can't wait for the next one.

[@xmesaj2]

I don't really know what's going on because Im noob but these videos are cool, this is the best and practical approach I've seen I think, loving it and subbed immadietely, good commentary, step by step. Waiting for more.

[@sanderspeetjens]

Looks good want to see the following episode. Reverse engineering seems pretty fun.

[@CorporateSeltzer]

I came across your channel shortly after downloading Ghidra. I appreciate how you clearly detail your train of thought in each video. I hope to see more!

[@osamazaid25]

Wow this is very impressive! Great job & keep going :)

[@drakibble2199]

Hey, I love watching reverse engineering videos! Thank you for this one. I'm glad that the KZbin recommendation bots have blessed you.

[@xXWipeout4Xx]

Interesting and good video. Reverse engineering and programming isn't really my thing and a lot of it is going over my head. But it's an interesting and informative video none the less. Waiting to see part 2!

[@better-break-bad-edits]

Parents: Install obvious virus that slows down the computer. Parents: It must be that Steam thing.

[@jeromecabarus6893]

you have finally cracked the 'WannaCry'' virus! I'm Impressed

[@PASTRAMIKick]

I used the GNU debugger to reverse engineer some stuff, but with more complex programs it gets harder, this seems make things more agile and clear

[@bancodrut]

Might be just Ghidra making it seem too easy 😃

[@sodicious]

i dont know what you are saying but i think this is very great

[@Frankie_Freedom]

Wow... as difficult as all this sounds, I'm a new security enthusiast, so I'm still learning. I was able to understand and somewhat follow what you were doing. kudus.

[@freeweed4all]

Using an open source reversing platform like Ghidra, everyone could potentially come closer to the reversing world. Oh what if I could be some years younger..

[@Decentsito]

what do you mean years younger

[@freeweed4all]

@@Decentsito I'm too old to start studying in depth reversing, now.

[@VictorNascimentoo]

No one is too old to learn.

[@medvfx3370]

@@freeweed4all how old are you?

[@freeweed4all]

@@UCnPE-cqd00o5SHPn0rHxphg thanks for the support. I made a choice some years ago, leaving netsec to start studying at University a totally different thing: knowing today how this sector is growing, maybe my choice wasn't the right one. Today, with these excellent resources, is far more easy to fill the gap with skilled reversing ppl: some years ago they appear like a part of a niche, like an out of reach status. This effect is an outcome of how much the reversing job offers are growing (US government choice about Ghidra isn't random).

[@aibh7903]

I’m trying to learn Ghidra and reverse engineering in general, and this and your other videos are so helpful.

[@awabomer]

So fast and accurate like a real ninja 😂, nice video , I didn't have to use speed 2 , like I usually do 😂

[@Pyritenite]

Well, I dont really understand well but Im here to understand it better, thanks for the video! Edit: i actually managed to understand a part of it

[@oleksiit2156]

Best video i ever seen on reverse engineering, keep it easy to understand! Thank you.

[@Yz0x]

Your skills are unbelievable. Good job 👏🏼

[@kinershah464]

Very good video. Thanks for this video. That flowchart was helpful too. I have never seen reverse engineering in practice, this was very interesting. Very similar to debugging programs only here we don't have symbol information and have to create our own symbols, but it seems this Ghidhra tool makes things a lot convenient. Whoever wrote this malware must have very good knowledge of Windows API, maybe even about Windows kernel.

[@Defyyyy1]

Keep up the amazing work you do with your videos!

[@Nightsd01]

Imagine how difficult this would have been if they had obfuscated their binary, adding thousands of false paths that don’t actually lead anywhere

[@Chillieman]

Dude!! This is an epic walkthrough of reverse engineering - SO INTERESTING!!

[@Kaplan0644]

Very nice video, thank you. I would definitely want to see more malware analysis with ghidra videos. :)

[@MrCollyTV]

Thanks for the great work! Can't wait for a part 2

[@prerunning6086]

Awesome video looking fwd to part 2

[@CrovaxHD]

i'm ignorant as a goat about this, but i find this voice quite relaxing and soothing

[@amandamate9117]

what kind of machine is this youtuber? jesas fck this fast and accurate analysis makes my head xplode

[@stacksmashing]

Reported and removed, there is no room for stuff like this on here :)

[@urugulu1656]

@@stacksmashing and also not for the answer of that other random guy calling the guy in the already deleted comment a waste of Oxygen. not all People are capable of following this type of Content not even developers that are already programming for a very long time. i guess in this case calling you a "machine" is somewhat of a compliment although a rather dubious one.

[@chriswright1389]

@@urugulu1656 Did you see the comment that I was replying to. It had nothing to do with the video and was just an unprovoked attack on someone minding their own business.

[@msinfo32]

@@stacksmashing what

[@MsAsssde]

you would NEVER make a good REV eng... your observation skills are poor... 1. Tool bar top (NOT windows), OSX or linux 2. Apple logo top left 3. APPLE finder logo left tool bar top

[@VRWarehouse]

Wow, part 2 please

[@anonpy6638]

Si entendiera inglés y lo que haces me encantaría seguir lo que haces. Mis ojos se quedaron atrapados cuando vi este video al parecer lo había visto antes y no comenté. .Mis respetos hombre.

[@tcocaine]

Really well done video. I think you should keep this series in this format. Personally I like the pacing of the video, and wouldn't want it slower, or faster.

[@samyuj]

Thanks man! Great content!! Definitely looking forward to more!! All the best!!

[@lilrich1243]

Thanks to solo learn the C++ and the python course I understand the basic functions. I just need to finish the modules for both and I'll be able to understand this a lot better

[@elliotmason681]

Thank you for your videos!!

[@powerfrog3688]

I almost fell asleep watching this video just because of this guy's beautiful asmr voice

[@snowcold903]

This is very interessting! Can't wait for part 2. Have discovered these malwares before, but fortunately it was on a computer with no important stuff on it. One question, are you really using mac osx or is this linux with mac os x skin ??

[@drozcan]

Nope this is macOS

[@muff1n1634]

it's macOS 2: electric boogaloo (system-wide dark theme included) get your copy today and save 50% off the normal cost!

[@paprika5487]

man, this was a trip

[@MusiclyJorge]

Video started normally until he opened Ghidra... Then he suddenly started to talk Gibberish :)

[@hunterlepage]

I dont know C or C++ or whatever is on the right, but at least i understand whats going on in the assembly code

[@Zayetzo]

Reminds me when I reverse engineered a program that communicated with certain peripherals to try to understand how that obscure peripheral worked. No information online except for the program itself at hand.

[@tissuepaper9962]

I swear I thought this video had only been five minutes long when it ended.

[@Drakestophet]

The creators of WannaCry must have been geniuses like this guy

[@recklessroges]

I am looking forward to the next video. (Should you encrypt the copy of Wannacry on your website using the AES key in your previous video? That would protect script kiddies from themselves and create a nice easter egg/crackme challenge?)

[@221Gregor]

Again your videos are insanely good !!! Love it !

[@TheMadMagician87]

Thanks for your videos, great detail. I hope you carry on with this channel and it's content.

[@TheChemicalWorkshop]

Debugging and decompiling is so fucking hard, it's like backwards coding... Great job!

[@voDKaandEric]

you make me realise how little I know about anything. Great video

[@strategycube770]

When I see a new video, I just have to find out what you’ve done with Ghidra.

[@Twisted_Code]

I was flying by the seat of my pants for most of this video, but I had JUST enough experience with C/C++ from college to follow MOST of what's going on? Good thing there are better geeks than me that were on top of this thing before it could do... more damage than it did... and props to the guy that accidentally found the kill switch :-)

[@ihabmb8960]

Great video. Waiting for the next part

[@37Kilo2]

This thing was hitting so many local places in my hometown. The school system, the police station. All of their systems were locked. And they paid up. Lol.

[@damienw4958]

Wow, I learnt so much about decompilation in this video! Thanks, keep it up!

[@nasserghoseiri4934]

This is some quality work! Congrats...

[@LiEnby]

Wow you do that so fast xD hmm very informative video and i learnt a bit about reverse engineering

[@ha2kiplt]

I ve no idea what he is doing but I’m very impressed

[@vengefulgod_]

Great work and love what you did to show us how to reengineer a malware program like wanna cry I am in discord and on htb trying everything I can do to learn this so thank you and this is very helpful

[@jbossman008]

That was elite. Way to go!

[@youtube_bat3811]

this is the video that helped me learn how to reverse engineer, thank you

[@meemkoo]

Imma be honest im just a python programmer with a little bit of experencine in rust. So even thouh i had a very vauge idea of what you were doing and having a somewhat good understanding of reverse engineering i still enjoyed it and kind of put it on as just some white noise in to do some linux stuff. Nice video!

[@RonShaders]

i don't know much about what you are doing but you earn a new subscriber here

[@Fear594]

accidentally ran this on my pc a few years ago, good thing i was in a call with my friend because we closed it out in task manager before it could do all of its damage lol

[@justone4272]

"if you have ever reverse engineered"- Nope, I can't even figure out how to pull up the terminal.

[@oscarlevipaguada]

Can’t wait for part 2

[@abraksas14]

"let's jump into the function" sounds kinda cute to my german ears :)

[@YLCao]

Great video! Looking forward to more of your videos on Ghidra reverse engineering!

[@miroslav1845]

Damn, this is how genius sounds like

[@Jell0zz]

This looks very interesting, great analysis, even for laymen.

[@stefm.w.3640]

learned more about programming from this video than from one year of college 😂

[@nezu_cc]

Awesome work as always. Keep it up

[@popkahchin]

I think you should make a throughout tutorials on hacking from 0 to advanced level. It would bring you even more views and many supporters will come too.It not only helps people know more about cyber security but also benefit you as well. Of course, you have to explain it in a simpler and easy ways so that beginners like us can understand and people will stick around. A lot of tutorials are either too complicated from the beginning or It just asks people to sign up some kind of paid programs etc.. This is not what we want.

[@MrHockeyNation]

You can’t just watch video and expect to become a hacker. Strong programming skills make for great hackers, but you need to learn the basics first.

[@popkahchin]

@@MrHockeyNation I am not saying that I expect to become a pro hacker just by watching videos. I am talking about providing complete tutorials for people from any sort of level like one of those courses that you can take from udemy but this will be free. Just a suggestion for him nothing more. If he wants to do it then great, if not then it is not a big deal

[@MrHockeyNation]

@@popkahchin Oh yeah of course, but videos are hard to follow and you should get yourself at the very least a basic understanding of programming, and to be more efficient, learn about more advanced programming techniques to make it worth your time.

[@tehdrek]

Awesome! Making a scary subject seem doable.

[@VoKuHiLaMan]

awesome video! I'd love to see more!

[@techguy921]

Why virus exe is in a plain code? No themida or vmprotect

[@mnodhe]

best I've seen till now