Cyber Risks · Trail of Bits Blog

Tracking a stolen code-signing certificate with osquery

Summary: Trail of Bits describes how 2.27 million Windows computers were infected with malware signed using a stolen certificate from the creators of CCleaner and inserted into its software update mechanism. The post explains that a colleague's pull request added Windows Authenticode code signature verification to osquery through an 'authenticode' table, letting defenders search for executables signed with a known-stolen certificate.

Key Takeaway: A stolen certificate let malware pass as a legitimate vendor update to 2.27 million machines, and the post notes that signing checks carry a 0% chance of false positives once a certificate is known stolen - making certificate-based searches a concrete way to find other infected hosts on your network.

Read the original at Trail of Bits Blog ↗

Topics
Detection & Response
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