Cyber Risks · Cisco Talos

Fun with SSDT Hooks and DEP

Summary: A Cisco Talos VRT researcher built an SSDT hook on a Windows XP SP2 VMware test box to trap calls to NtSetInformationProcess at SSDT offset 0xe4h and flag ProcessExecuteFlags (0x22) calls that attempt to turn off DEP. The hook logs matches via DbgPrint for client-side process identification, and the researcher notes the test processor lacks NX support, so the calls were observed rather than blocked.

Bottom line: The technique targets the syscall path exploits use to disable DEP, including Metasploit's MS08-067 attack against acgeneral.dll, but the test hardware's missing NX support meant the hook could only watch the calls, not prevent them.

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