Unraveling a REMOTE ACCESS TROJAN (VBScript Deobfuscation)

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[@asbestinuS]

I'm loving these deobfuscation videos, please do more of them. I don't really care which malware it ends up being, I love to see your thought process and deobfuscation techniqes and so on.

[@nordgaren2358]

Same! I love the deobfuscation videos, and I don't care if it's a new malware or not! The process of getting there is what intrigues me, not the outcome. If it's some new malware we have never seen, then bonus!

[@FVT-tn8ji]

Same here, I dont really understand that much but his process of understanding this program is really interesting to me!

[@plut4580]

OH YES, finally some malware analysis, i love your content and i’m learning so much, unfortunately i gotta do some homework first! Don’t stop making videos.

[@TriSept]

Your deobfuscation videos are my favorites. Definitely want to see more of these!

[@calvinstar356]

Love these videos, you are 100% correct that this type of analysis is much easier to follow for beginners then binary in Ida. Keep up the great work John, love the content

[@infidon9229]

had absolutely no idea what was going on, but I was still very entertained and had no problem watching this in one sitting. hoping to start to catch on/understand small things as I keep watching videos like this. Banger video, ty john

[@sokai6475]

Dude, I love watching your malware analysis vids. By no means should you stop doing them. I especially appreciate how you're able to bounce between different programming languages and explain to your audience how the lines of code work and so forth. You've made it very interesting to me and as a layman who is trying to get into cybersecurity, this is very informative. Keep up the good work!

[@charlieisacatwithseizures]

As someone who wants to become a malware analyst, please make more of these videos. They are great practice and examples so that when I try to do it myself, i can look back at the thought process and get my head in the right mode to think critically.

[@z0mn1a]

Beside learning the very basics of code, I like to watch your analysis videos as a way of reminding myself why I'm learning this stuff. Watching you do this is like watching someone disarm a bomb. You have me on the edge of my seat the whole time, even though I only understand about 30% of what your saying. Please keep making these videos. And keep them long!!!

[@LexiLominite]

I think most of the people dont care what is the end result of the video. But many people will like the thought process of you on deobsfucating things. This is nice. Glad that you uploaded it 🙂

[@stavros222]

I love that when you see names like hexadecimal values or strange names like AAAAAAA or whatever is 100% a malicious code

[@slackerbelmont]

Even if the end result is something that you've seen before, the process of getting to that point is most of the reason that I watch.

[@Alex-qx1gx]

I loved the video - happy KZbin recommended it for me. I enjoyed seeing your thought process a lot, even if VBS is not a programming language I know.

[@cojocaru08]

I love these deobfuscation videos. And yes, that execute global override was neat

[@Kiesp]

I don't mind it not being something new. It's great to see you decode and deobfuscate random stuff :D When saving a file in Notepad++ (and a lot of other programs) just add " around the filename, so you don't have to pick it manually ^^ So call it "experiment.vbs" and it'll save as a vbs file :D

[@1stAshaMan]

You can also just scroll up 1 line in the file type box to select "All Types (*.*)" As long as you have an extension in your file name it'll save as that type I always wondered why they didn't just have it default to the type you enter when you put in a file extension

[@liamwhalen]

Cool to see a thought process in effect and helpful to share techniques for all to learn from. I really liked the feeling expressed when you found the new technique with the Execute stuff. That feeling is one of the things that makes this sort of work worth the while. I wonder if the first part that stops execution entirely is the value added work to the old VBA script? Maybe something needs to be present on the machine in order for the trojan to execute. There may be some value to security through obscurity.

[@briank8525]

Outstanding John. I agree with the comments below. I learn so much by watching you and taking notes as well.

[@DexCode1337]

finally a new malware analysis video! more like this please!

[@GratuityMedia]

Its so cool to watch you Deobfuscate. Great thinking exercise for the morning.

[@sraven3671]

That was awesome, love your work - you're a legend!

[@GeeWillikersMan]

I too am loving these videos. Far beyond by programming abilities but it's really nice to see how it's done.

[@Thoraxe12]

I don't know if you will see this but as a newer programmer this was amazing to watch. I have never tried or seen obfuscation in a real life example and it was just amazing. I thought this was so much harder then it really is and makes me want to try to do this myself. Please do more because this got me excited just to go program again even though my current project is killing me XD

[@jimsmindonline]

Although it was a dud, still enjoyed. This is my favourite sort of stuff you do, your knowledge of different languages is impressive!

[@speeder3235]

yoo more deobfuscation Missed those dearly, thanks for gifting us another one of these videos!

[@alanc12402]

Great video there John! It's great seeing your process and it's educational! Even if it's malware we've seen before, the process is super important.

[@Ryoushin]

gotta love deobfuscating acbogs, great video!

[@verolyn8459]

Man, I'm waiting for it and now its back.. New video, New Learnings.

[@The_Fancy_Duck]

I find this relaxing and educational, like you can just put this on in the back ground or something.

[@stanceverse2427]

AAAAAAA if BBBBBB then CCCCCCC

[@not4real920]

I agree - i get more out of the thought process vs. which malware it actually is

[@bijss1595]

These videos are the best to watch :) doesnt matter we've seen the rat before. Always learn new stuff from your videos! Keep it up :)

[@Octomany]

Haha that "Yeeaahhh" of pure satisfaction at 27:35, love it. Nice trick by the way, thanks for sharing!

[@msalih]

Awesome. Overriding the eval function with echo really cool 😂

[@Defotowe]

John is back with the content we all crave, love it .

[@duscraftphoto]

Great deobfuscation content, as usual! Keep up the amazing work!

[@YouKnowTGreen]

lol still so kool to watch John videos even though i have no idea on how to do the deobfuscation but John make you feel like you watching a movie

[@AngryMarkFPV]

Such a good teacher, keep it up mate. I feel smarter every day (pun almost intended) when I watch these.

[@lukebremer5647]

I am disappointed you didn't say spooky wooky but great content man, keep it up.

[@xthukuh]

I like the thought process.

[@linus8247]

"i didn't know we were going to give up so easy"

[@Gersberms]

Notepad++ is such a tease. It looks so helpful, but I hate it every time I use it. Get VS Code. I'm really surprised VBS lets you use apostrophes as well as quotes!

[@danf4321]

Great video as always!

[@Basieeee]

"This is gonna suck, you guys must hate listening to me." Me: 20 mins in already.

[@jojobobbubble5688]

Interesting stuff. Super new to all of this but I'm enjoying it as I learn

[@hartlink]

Hola, don't feel bad about the ending for us was entertainment, fun and educative, thanks for sharing this kind of content, keep it up!

[@TheCastorPlays]

Sure it's 'just' houdini again. But that was a really slick trick to overwrite executeglobal, so thanks for that at the very least!

[@broom7294]

FINALLY MALWARE ANALYSIS

[@zdazeeeh]

These vids are always my fave

[@patrickwootang]

Thanks for being a great teacher!

[@henryfrere8680]

I really love these videos. I wish I had the motivation to learn more about this stuff. One day!

[@truenerthus4460]

Please do more of this. Great content

[@gijsyo]

This was really fun to watch

[@waxnet]

Finally I love these videos

[@Anon0nline]

This seems like a lot of effort when it's really easy to write a script for both Windows and Unix-like systems that just creates a new elevated hidden account and a SSH session over tor.

[@ValZarGaming]

If you typo a name in Notepad++ you can just right click the tab and click rename

[@danomaly8943]

I'm learning a lot from these videos. Honestly it is a little disappointing that it's the same thing because it seems like they are being taught similar methods to hide the code however for me just getting into this it is helpful to know that people can use the same thing in different ways. On the other hand I think we all want to find something interesting or especially nefarious because that's exciting.

[@santiagofonzo9336]

Thank you John for making these videos! This is how you get someone to change his career from chemistry to cybersec haha 😂. So interesting 🙌🏻

[@rafaellisboa8493]

I don't understand any of this but it was very cool to watch, want to learn some day

[@vaibhav3852]

I just saw the other video where this rat was found. After that I hit your malware playlist and saw this. I was so sad like you when I saw the comment at the top of the code. :D

[@DavidCosta85]

thank you for the knowledge sharing. blessings

[@DouweHummeling]

This video is amazing, I love listening to you (20:01)

[@VespyPrem]

nice malware analysis

[@iWhacko]

the garbled names could be a conversion error between file encodings, like between unicode and utf8

[@beyondcatastrophe_]

28:30 "Would this even execute?" Yes, it would, you are forgetting the first line "On Error Resume Next". This basically tells the interpreter to set the global "Err" and continue as if nothing had happened.

[@mattcargile]

Do you know why we couldn’t get the next.vbs script to correctly display the data and how to override executeglobal?

[@beyondcatastrophe_]

@@mattcargile I assume you mean the error at 22:45? I think this is because the syntax does not properly handle special characters. John just dumped the string as-is, instead of going through any serialization. Whereas when it is already in memory, that's not a problem. (E.g. quotes, in memory it's just a ", but if you want it inside a string, you need to do ""). As for how to override executeglobal, I'm not sure what your question is. "Override" is a slightly ambiguous term in programming; you can see at 24:45 that he just re-defines the function to "catch" the call to the built-in and do something else.

[@hishamtarsoo5233]

Great video John!

[@williamist]

love this type of content!

[@Soup69God]

huge fan of these videos!

[@SmallAngryNerd]

"This is garbage! this does nothing!" - the TA grading my freshman coding projects

[@seansingh4421]

This is the reason I have extremely strict Applocker settings on any of my Windows desktop.

[@hm-jr4ok]

I enjoyed watching this!

[@justindeleon9074]

what a cool freaking channel. Subbed and liked.

[@MrGattor33]

Great deobfuscation content! Keep up the Great work John! Just curious as to why you couldn't run this on a separate machine or in a VM and see what the whole thing really does before breaking it down like you have here.

[@altaccount648]

why use regex to remove the same lines 50 times when you can ctrl+d in vscode?

[@diddyman1958]

Don't be sorry for putting this video out, the fun was in the de-obfuscation

[@KataisTrash]

I kind of love watching you try to figure out that regex :)) All you needed was just "'\[PHP](.*?)\]", with multi-line flag (to skip the newline stuff). Not sure about multi-line in sublime, but as far as I could google it's just (?s) in the front, so "(?s)'\[PHP](.*?)\]" should work?

[@HackTheHackers]

awesome!

[@refaiabdeen5943]

Cheers Mate.

[@swamppifi6186]

it might help if you do a condensed version without the false starts. but it is still a good video

[@sammyfromsydney]

I'd be very wary of your neat little trick of overriding functions because if you get it even slightly wrong you're going to have a bad day. At least it was on a VM and disconnected from the Internet.

[@custard131]

you should try out the CTRL+D keyboard shortcut in sublime

[@yeetoro3693]

more of these please

[@MCorange9]

Hey, quick question, where do you find these. The deobuscation looks fun but i cant seem to find good malware

[@netanel135]

You are awesome 👌🏾

[@nixielee]

Deobfuscation videos are your best work. Apart from the excessive zooming. That drives me crazy.

[@axjv]

Interesting breakdown. At 26:34 I think you have an extra )

[@PhilXavierSierraJones]

"Damnit it was Dunihi again!"

[@abrarmasumabir3809]

what chair are you using? It doesn't look like the old one.

[@peterwestin1874]

Probably got one more soon.

[@snabbisnabb595]

I love these deobfuscation vids, however, I would feel uneasy just to use your execute function. What if there still is some eval function within the thing you are executing? Isnt this quite risky?

[@collect0r]

10 minutes in i worked out the obfuscation of ascii

[@SLZeroArrow]

This must of been a freaking PAIN to do, like many many attempts to get it deobfuscated. Darn those hackers really challenged you here didn't they.

[@DIIGITAL101]

Jhon, best video EVER XD

[@disdroid]

I wouldn't bother finding a regex for less than about 8-10k lines, it would be quicker to delete in the editor

[@alex-dn9to]

wow they used a sphere 👌👌

[@peekagrub]

Couldn't you check if it would run in the first place, despite all the errors, by adding the custom executeglobal to the first script, since it would be nerved?

[@hihihi1733]

Awesome

[@accountname1047]

I still learned something about visual basic, don't feel bad

[@SheIITear]

28:10, arent those services used keep the same address? like if your server or whatever ip changes that service automatically takes care of it and you dont have to update the payloads with the new ip

[@DaxyGamer]

yes they say the ip is static not dynamic

[@HimitsuYami]

That wasn't AAAAAAAAAA it was the code screaming lol

[@KennethLongcrier]

Won't Visual Studio Code run under RemNux? (VS Code should allow you to run VB/VBScript code)

[@mattcargile]

Why wouldn’t the weird text in next.vbs data work?

[@spiralsage]

Cool