Think about that you simply reverse engineered a bit of malware in painstaking element solely to seek out that the malware writer created a barely modified model of the malware the subsequent day. You would not wish to redo all of your onerous work. One approach to keep away from beginning over from scratch is to make use of code comparability strategies to attempt to establish pairs of features within the outdated and new model which are “the identical.” (I’ve used quotes as a result of “identical” on this occasion is a little bit of a nebulous idea, as we’ll see).

A number of instruments will help in such conditions. A extremely popular industrial software is zynamics’ BinDiff, which is now owned by Google and is free. The SEI’s Pharos binary evaluation framework additionally features a code comparability utility referred to as fn2hash. On this SEI Weblog put up, the primary in a two-part collection on hashing, I first clarify the challenges of code comparability and current our resolution to the issue. I then introduce fuzzy hashing, a brand new kind of hashing algorithm that may carry out inexact matching. Lastly, I examine the efficiency of fn2hash and a fuzzy hashing algorithm utilizing numerous experiments.

Background

Actual Hashing

fn2hash employs a number of forms of hashing. Essentially the most generally used known as place impartial code (PIC) hashing. To see why PIC hashing is vital, we’ll begin by taking a look at a naive precursor to PIC hashing: merely hashing the instruction bytes of a operate. We’ll name this precise hashing.

For instance, I compiled this easy program oo.cpp with g++. Determine 1 exhibits the start of the meeting code for the operate myfunc (full code):

Determine 1: Meeting Code and Bytes from oo.gcc

Actual Bytes

Within the first highlighted line of Determine 1, you may see that the primary instruction is a push r14, which is encoded by the hexadecimal instruction bytes 41 56. If we gather the encoded instruction bytes for each instruction within the operate, we get the next (Determine 2):

Determine 2: Actual Bytes in oo.gcc

We name this sequence the precise bytes of the operate. We are able to hash these bytes to get an precise hash, 62CE2E852A685A8971AF291244A1283A.

Shortcomings of Actual Hashing

The highlighted name at deal with 0x401210 is a relative name, which implies that the goal is specified as an offset from the present instruction (technically, the subsequent instruction). For those who have a look at the instruction bytes for this instruction, it contains the bytes bb fe ff ff, which is 0xfffffebb in little endian kind;. Interpreted as a signed integer worth, that is -325. If we take the deal with of the subsequent instruction (0x401210 + 5 == 0x401215) after which add -325 to it, we get 0x4010d0, which is the deal with of operator new, the goal of the decision. Now we all know that bb fe ff ff is an offset from the subsequent instruction. Such offsets are referred to as relative offsets as a result of they’re relative to the deal with of the subsequent instruction.

I created a barely modified program (oo2.gcc) by including an empty, unused operate earlier than myfunc (Determine 3). You will discover the disassembly of myfunc for this executable right here.

If we take the precise hash of myfunc on this new executable, we get 05718F65D9AA5176682C6C2D5404CA8D. You’ll discover that is totally different from the hash for myfunc within the first executable, 62CE2E852A685A8971AF291244A1283A. What occurred? Let us take a look at the disassembly.

Determine 3: Meeting Code and Bytes from oo2.gcc

Discover that myfunc moved from 0x401200 to 0x401210, which additionally moved the deal with of the decision instruction from 0x401210 to 0x401220. The decision goal is specified as an offset from the (subsequent) instruction’s deal with, which modified by 0x10 == 16, so the offset bytes for the decision modified from bb fe ff ff (-325) to ab fe ff ff (-341 == -325 – 16). These adjustments modify the precise bytes as proven in Determine 4.

Determine 4: Actual Bytes in oo2.gcc

Determine 5 presents a visible comparability. Purple represents bytes which are solely in oo.gcc, and inexperienced represents bytes in oo2.gcc. The variations are small as a result of the offset is just altering by 0x10, however this is sufficient to break precise hashing.

Determine 5: Distinction Between Actual Bytes in oo.gcc and oo2.gcc

PIC Hashing

The objective of PIC hashing is to compute a hash or signature of code in a method that preserves the hash when relocating the code. This requirement is vital as a result of, as we simply noticed, modifying a program typically ends in small adjustments to addresses and offsets, and we do not need these adjustments to change the hash. The instinct behind PIC hashing is very straight-forward: Establish offsets and addresses which are more likely to change if this system is recompiled, reminiscent of bb fe ff ff, and easily set them to zero earlier than hashing the bytes. That method, if they alter as a result of the operate is relocated, the operate’s PIC hash will not change.

The next visible diff (Determine 6) exhibits the variations between the precise bytes and the PIC bytes on myfunc in oo.gcc. Purple represents bytes which are solely within the PIC bytes, and inexperienced represents the precise bytes. As anticipated, the primary change we are able to see is the byte sequence bb fe ff ff, which is modified to zeros.

Determine 6: Byte Distinction Between PIC Bytes (Purple) and Actual Bytes (Inexperienced)

If we hash the PIC bytes, we get the PIC hash EA4256ECB85EDCF3F1515EACFA734E17. And, as we’d hope, we get the identical PIC hash for myfunc within the barely modified oo2.gcc.

Evaluating the Accuracy of PIC Hashing

The first motivation behind PIC hashing is to detect an identical code that’s moved to a special location. However what if two items of code are compiled with totally different compilers or totally different compiler flags? What if two features are very comparable, however one has a line of code eliminated? These adjustments would modify the non-offset bytes which are used within the PIC hash, so it will change the PIC hash of the code. Since we all know that PIC hashing is not going to all the time work, on this part we talk about methods to measure the efficiency of PIC hashing and examine it to different code comparability strategies.

Earlier than we are able to outline the accuracy of any code comparability approach, we want some floor reality that tells us which features are equal. For this weblog put up, we use compiler debug symbols to map operate addresses to their names. Doing so offers us with a floor reality set of features and their names. Additionally, for the needs of this weblog put up, we assume that if two features have the identical title, they’re “the identical.” (This, clearly, isn’t true usually!)

Confusion Matrices

So, for instance now we have two comparable executables, and we wish to consider how nicely PIC hashing can establish equal features throughout each executables. We begin by contemplating all attainable pairs of features, the place every pair incorporates a operate from every executable. This method known as the Cartesian product between the features within the first executable and the features within the second executable. For every operate pair, we use the bottom reality to find out whether or not the features are the identical by seeing if they’ve the identical title. We then use PIC hashing to foretell whether or not the features are the identical by computing their hashes and seeing if they’re an identical. There are two outcomes for every willpower, so there are 4 potentialities in complete:

• True optimistic (TP): PIC hashing accurately predicted the features are equal.
• True adverse (TN): PIC hashing accurately predicted the features are totally different.
• False optimistic (FP): PIC hashing incorrectly predicted the features are equal, however they don’t seem to be.
• False adverse (FN): PIC hashing incorrectly predicted the features are totally different, however they’re equal.

To make it somewhat simpler to interpret, we colour the nice outcomes inexperienced and the dangerous outcomes purple. We are able to symbolize these in what known as a confusion matrix:

For instance, here’s a confusion matrix from an experiment wherein I exploit PIC hashing to match openssl variations 1.1.1w and 1.1.1v when they’re each compiled in the identical method. These two variations of openssl are fairly comparable, so we’d count on that PIC hashing would do nicely as a result of loads of features can be an identical however shifted to totally different addresses. And, certainly, it does:

Metrics: Accuracy, Precision, and Recall

So, when does PIC hashing work nicely and when does it not? To reply these questions, we’ll want a better approach to consider the standard of a confusion matrix as a single quantity. At first look, accuracy looks as if essentially the most pure metric, which tells us: What number of pairs did hashing predict accurately? This is the same as

For the above instance, PIC hashing achieved an accuracy of

You would possibly assume 99.9 % is fairly good, however if you happen to look intently, there’s a refined downside: Most operate pairs are not equal. In response to the bottom reality, there are TP+FN = 344+1=345 equal operate pairs, and TN+FP=118,602+78=118,680 nonequivalent operate pairs. So, if we simply guessed that each one operate pairs had been nonequivalent, we’d nonetheless be proper 118680/(118680+345)=99.9 % of the time. Since accuracy weights all operate pairs equally, it’s not essentially the most applicable metric.

As a substitute, we wish a metric that emphasizes optimistic outcomes, which on this case are equal operate pairs. This result’s per our objective in reverse engineering, as a result of figuring out that two features are equal permits a reverse engineer to switch information from one executable to a different and save time.

Three metrics that focus extra on optimistic circumstances (i.e., equal features) are precision, recall, and F1 rating:

• Precision: Of the operate pairs hashing declared equal, what number of had been really equal? This is the same as TP/(TP+FP).
• Recall: Of the equal operate pairs, what number of did hashing accurately declare as equal? This is the same as TP/(TP+FN).
• F1 rating: This can be a single metric that displays each the precision and recall. Particularly, it’s the harmonic imply of the precision and recall, or (2∗Recall∗Precision)/(Recall+Precision). In comparison with the arithmetic imply, the harmonic imply is extra delicate to low values. Because of this if both the precision or recall is low, the F1 rating will even be low.

So, trying on the instance above, we are able to compute the precision, recall, and F1 rating. The precision is 344/(344+78) = 0.81, the recall is 344 / (344 + 1) = 0.997, and the F1 rating is 2∗0.81∗0.997/(0.81+0.997)=0.89. PIC hashing is ready to establish 81 % of equal operate pairs, and when it does declare a pair is equal it’s appropriate 99.7 % of the time. This corresponds to an F1 rating of 0.89 out of 1.0, which is fairly good.

Now, you may be questioning how nicely PIC hashing performs when there are extra substantial variations between executables. Let’s have a look at one other experiment. On this one, I examine an openssl executable compiled with GCC to at least one compiled with Clang. As a result of GCC and Clang generate meeting code in a different way, we’d count on there to be much more variations.

Here’s a confusion matrix from this experiment:

On this instance, PIC hashing achieved a recall of 23/(23+301)=0.07, and a precision of 23/(23+31) = 0.43. So, PIC hashing can solely establish 7 % of equal operate pairs, however when it does declare a pair is equal it’s appropriate 43 % of the time. This corresponds to an F1 rating of 0.12 out of 1.0, which is fairly dangerous. Think about that you simply spent hours reverse engineering the 324 features in one of many executables solely to seek out that PIC hashing was solely in a position to establish 23 of them within the different executable. So, you’ll be compelled to needlessly reverse engineer the opposite features from scratch. Can we do higher?

The Nice Fuzzy Hashing Debate

Within the subsequent put up on this collection, we’ll introduce a really totally different kind of hashing referred to as fuzzy hashing, and discover whether or not it may possibly yield higher efficiency than PIC hashing alone.  As with PIC hashing, fuzzy hashing reads a sequence of bytes and produces a hash.  In contrast to PIC hashing, nevertheless, whenever you examine two fuzzy hashes, you’re given a similarity worth between 0.0 and 1.0, the place 0.0 means fully dissimilar, and 1.0 means fully comparable.  We’ll current the outcomes of a number of experiments that pit PIC hashing and a well-liked fuzzy hashing algorithm in opposition to one another and study their strengths and weaknesses within the context of malware reverse-engineering.