Linux.Nasty
A x64 ELF infector written in Assembly that implements the Reverse Text Segment Infection technique.
- Segment is extended in reverse by PAGE_SIZE to make room for the virus.
- This technique only works on regular ELF executables (does not work with PIE).
- It is also not working on systems with huge pages enabled at this time.
- PAGE_SIZE alignment should be calculated dynamically but this code assumes its value of 4096 for demonstration purposes.
- Infects current directory (non recursively) and has no destructive payload
- Entry point still resides in the .text segment, which is less suspicious.
This code was released in the first issue of tmp.0ut zine.
Build
Assemble it with FASM x64 and add virus signature to first generation binary with:
$ fasm Linux.Nasty.asm
flat assembler version 1.73.22 (16384 kilobytes memory)
3 passes, 1123 bytes.
$ file Linux.Nasty
ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), statically linked, no section header
$ sha256sum Linux.Nasty
411e12c0bc6f30291b5a36dc9f8533d991650636efb7fa57804747733aa271b1 Linux.Nasty
$ echo -n 544d5a00 | xxd -r -p -s +0x9 - Linux.Nasty
$ sha256sum Linux.Nasty
c5b43124358e73960233499b7690dae55b462bfd9dae9084b5a1d519d978e4a4 Linux.Nasty