Walk-Through: Volatility Batch File Maker and Volatility's VadDump

*********** The First 5 Steps are exactly the same as my last posted regarding Walk-Through: Volatility Batch File Maker and Volatility's ProcDump. The Walk-through Portion is repeated here for future discussions. Skip if applicable.******************

1. Download the following files from Hogfly (Website)
exemplar6.tar.gz.001
exemplar6.tar.gz.002
exemplar6.tar.gz.003

In my example I placed the files in e:\exemlar6\ directory

2. Add the downloaded files together and Extract with the following cmd prompt code:

Copy /b “exemplar6.tar.gz.001”+ “exemplar6.tar.gz.002”+” exemplar6.tar.gz.003” exemplar6.tar.gz

3. Extract using WinRAR (exemplar6.tar.gz to exemplar6.vmem)

4. Run PtfinderFE against extracted file(exemplar6.vmem) which creates exemplar6.txt


5.Run Volatility Batch File Maker.
-a. Select e:\exemlar6\xemplar6.vmem with “Browse for Memory Capture”.
-b. Select e:\exemlar6\exemplar6.txt (created by PtFinderFE) for your memory image with “Browse for Offset Text File”.
-c. Create Batch (Which is hidden until the previous listed fields are populated).

6. .Goto the directory containing exemplar6.vmem (e:\exemlar6\) and run e:\exemlar6\vaddump.bat file.

7.Browse the e:\exemlar6\vaddump folder.(The following images is a truncated view of the vaddump directory's content):


8. Drop the entire vaddump directory and the original exemplar6.vmem into ENCASE (or your forensic tool of choice).

9. Hash all the files (Search>Calculate hash value).

10. Compare Hash Values. First you will notice some duplicated hash values between VAD files from different processes. I believe this shows that there is possibility of some type of relationship between the different processes. Look at the three files with the hash of 2defb57866392bd7145b3b85894d3a4a

atsxyzd.sys.1b13b40.00af0000-00af7fff.dmp
dxonool32.sys.17fc678.00e90000-00e97fff.dmp
dw8.exe.17f7020.00a20000-00a27fff.dmp

In my last post atsxyzd.sys, dxonool32.sys and dw8.exe were identified as suspected malware.

Now look at the VAD contents that are the same for all three files. The following is a text tepresentation(truncated)of the similar VAD Files (Hash:2defb57866392bd7145b3b85894d3a4a):

Client UrlCache MMF Ver 5.2··€···P··€···U········Äý······ø······················CLUBCLEZ
····KPAN45MJ····0HEN0X2F····WTE74L2Z····················


We can then create search words out of CLUBCLEZ, KPAN45MJ, 0HEN0X2F and WTE74L2Z(which look like they might be folder names used by Internet Explorer). For every hit in the VAD files there is a hit in the original VMEM File. There is one additional hit in the VMEM file for each search term which we would then try and figure out.

11. Create search term like “http://” and go “cherry picking” you can find a lot of IP Addresses in the suspected malware. It is very easy to find the context to your search hits just by looking at the file they are located in.


There is approximately 107 megabytes of VAD files (without duplicates). The total size of the original VMEM is 256 megabytes. That is 2/5 context provided for this dump file. In less then 6 minutes.

Walk-Through: Volatility Batch File Maker and Volatility's ProcDump

1. Download the following files from Hogfly (Website)
exemplar6.tar.gz.001
exemplar6.tar.gz.002
exemplar6.tar.gz.003

In my example I placed the files in e:\exemlar6\ directory

2. Add the downloaded files together and extract with the following cmd prompt code:

Copy /b “exemplar6.tar.gz.001”+ “exemplar6.tar.gz.002”+” exemplar6.tar.gz.003” exemplar6.tar.gz

3. Extract using WinRAR (exemplar6.tar.gz to exemplar6.vmem)

4. Run PtfinderFE against extracted file(exemplar6.vmem) which creates exemplar6.txt


5.Run Volatility Batch File Maker.
-a. Select e:\exemlar6\xemplar6.vmem with “Browse for Memory Capture”.
-b. Select e:\exemlar6\exemplar6.txt (created by PtFinderFE) for your memory image with “Browse for Offset Text File”.
-c. Create Batch (Which is hidden until the previous listed fields are populated).

6. .Goto the directory containing exemplar6.vmem (e:\exemlar6\) and run e:\exemlar6\procdump.bat file.

7.Browse the e:\exemlar6\procdump folder.



8.Use an anti-virus tool against the reconstructed executable files in the e:\exemlar6\procdump directory

I decided to send the files to Virus Total for testing. Using their "Send to" Function.

PID 464 - “dw8.exe”(Virus Total Results: 13 of 40 Hits)
PID 648 ”tdctxte.exe” (Virus Total Results: 116 of 41 Hits)
PID 872 ”atsxyzd.sys” (Virus Total Results: 117 of 41 Hits)
PID 1056 ”dxonool32.sys” (Virus Total Results: 119 of 40 Hits)
PID 1876 ”sopidkc.exe” (Virus Total Results: 14 of 41 Hits)
PID 1932 ”afisicx.exe” (Virus Total Results: 119 of 40 Hits)


Some Additional Notes and Some Background:
I'm not sure why but it seems the executables that have unique icons instead of the generic executable icons have a high percentage of being malicious.

Until I created Volatility Batch File Maker I was using batch file, and changing input via a spreadsheet and some “find and replace” functions. One of the batch file I created attempted to use ProcDump on all the PIDs (-p option) from 0 to 6000. Reconstructed executables were only made for PIDs that were listed as running by Ptfinder. I also tried using Procdump offset (-o option) function with the same results(and ALOT more time!!!).

I was analyzing a “real world” machine which was running over 90 processes. I placed the executables created by ProcDump into a zip files, by groups of 10. I then sent them up to Virus Total for Scanning. Unfortunately when I found a hit there was no way to determine which file out of the group of ten was the suspected malware file.

I would like to start an ssdeep database of common executables created by Procdump.

Volatility Batch File Maker

The Tool: VolatilityBatch File Maker Download

I wanted to take the text output of the various tools (Ptfinder, PtFinderFE and Volatility >PsScan2) which identifies all the offsets for (running) processes and input that offset data into several Volatility tools (ProcDump, MemDmp and VadDump). This program creates three batch files. After running the batch files I can quickly leverage additional investigation techniques at the output.

1.Run Ptfinder, PtFinderFE or Volatility >PsScan2 to create a text file that contains process offsets.
2.Run Volatility Batch File Maker.
-a.Select you memory image with “Browse for Memory Capture”.
-b.Select the Offset Text File for your memory image with “Browse for Offset Text File”.
-c.Create Batch (Which is hidden until the previous fields are populated)

Three Batch files are created,upon execution of the “Create Batch”, in the root folder where the memory capture resides. The three batch programs created are procdump.bat, memdmp.bat and vaddump.bat. When you run the batch files each one will create a folder in the residing directory and populate that directory with the selected Volatility Output. Each batch file also creates an additional text output showing any errors(procdumpinfo.txt, memdmpinfor.txt and vaddmpinfo.txt).

The following is an example of the procdump batch file with the following two inputs:
Location of Volatility = "C:\volatility"
Location of Memory Dump ="E:\exemplar\6\exemplar6.vmem"


mkdir procdump
cd procdump
python "c:\volatility\volatility" procdump -f "E:\exemplar\6\exemplar6.vmem" -u -o 0x00551b80>>procdumpinfo.txt
python "c:\volatility\volatility" procdump -f "E:\exemplar\6\exemplar6.vmem" -u -o 0x0166f7b0>>procdumpinfo.txt
python "c:\volatility\volatility" procdump -f "E:\exemplar\6\exemplar6.vmem" -u -o 0x01690920>>procdumpinfo.txt
python "c:\volatility\volatility" procdump -f "E:\exemplar\6\exemplar6.vmem" -u -o 0x016aa3c0>>procdumpinfo.txt
python "c:\volatility\volatili*****Truncated - You get the idea********************

Uses for the Ouput of the Batch Files:
After re-creating all the “executables” from the running processes you can run a virus scanner at the procdump folder. This can be another tool in the arsenal of defeating the Trojan Horse Defense.

Or how about one for the incident response guys... You could run this protocol at a full memory.dmp or on a converted hiberfil.sys (Converted with Suiche's Hibershell) created on a machine prior to your actual response and collection. How many times has someone “helped” you out by deleting the malware from the target machine just before you walked into the door. If the memory.dmp or hiberfil.sys is recent you might be able to “recreate” the malware executable. You could also show a machine has been compromised (or not) when the memory.dmp or hiberfil.sys was captured

The Vaddump folder now contains the output which can easily be used in a program like Encase to give you context to you memory image.

Some walk-through examples to be posted soon. Also I am in the process of updating PtFinderFE!!!