Why `sub rsp, 8` is nessesary while executing a shellcode - windows

https://github.com/CptGibbon/Windows-Process-Injection/blob/master/Thread%20hijacking/Thread%20hijacking.c#L108
When using SetThreadContext to let a thread to execute a shellcode, why need to sub rsp 8? If I don't do this, the thread crashes.I understand the return address will be saved at that, but my shellcode will never return.

Related

x64 calling createthread from asm

push 0 //tid
push 0 //flag
sub rsp, 20
mov r9,0 //parameter
mov rcx,0 //security attribute
mov rdx, 0 //stacksize
mov r8,threadmem //address
call kernel32.createthread
I'm calling createthread in this way.
But if I put any address in parameter, my code doesn't work.
Just making my PC lag and nothing happens, seems like thread is created but my code isn't executed.
However, if I don't put parameter and leave itself for 0 it works.
Can anyone help me?
You are not strictly following the x64 calling convention. Push and sub rsp may only occur in the prolog.
Windows disassembles your code and unreachable code can still hang because of it. I had to give up altogether.

How can I catch RSP and RIP corruption exceptions in Windows?

I am working on a crash handling system for my Windows desktop application, and not sure the best way to catch some exceptions. Here are 3 simple functions that crash:
crash_av proc
xor rax, rax
mov qword ptr [rax], 0
ret
crash_av endp
trash_rip proc
push 0
push 0
ret
trash_rip endp
trash_rsp proc
xor rsp, rsp
ret
trash_rsp endp
Using SetUnhandledExceptionFilter, I'm only able to catch crash_av.
Using AddVectoredExceptionFilter, I'm only able to catch crash_av and trash_rip.
But I am unaware of any way to catch trash_rsp at all. Is it possible? Are there other crash scenarios I should be looking out for? Is there a canonical way to capture all of these crashes, reliably?
any exception handler executed in context of thread, in which exception occurred. in case trash_rsp - let ask - which must be rsp (stack pointer) when exception begin handled ? when you corrupt rsp (go out of stack space) - game is over for your process. any internal handler can not recover from this.
in case SetUnhandledExceptionFilter exist one point - UnhandledExceptionFilter called only when debugger not attached to your process. so if debugger attached - UnhandledExceptionFilter not called. you bad test UnhandledExceptionFilter must be called for both crash_av and trash_rip if debugger not attached. otherwise must not be called for both.
AddVectoredExceptionHandler called for any exception (except rsp out of stack space) independent from debugger attached or no. of course if debugger not handle exception on first chance and another AddVectoredExceptionHandler not handle exception before your

Structured Exception Handler catches near-zero EIP trap differently on nearly identical machines?

I have a rather complex, but extremely well-tested assembly language x86-32 application running on variety of x86-32 and x86-64 boxes. This is a runtime system for a language compiler, so it supports the execution of another compiled binary program, the "object code".
It uses Windows SEH to catch various kinds of traps: division by zero, illegal access, ... and prints a register dump using the context information provided by Windows, that shows the state of the machine at the time of the trap. (It does lots of other stuff irrelevant to the question, such as printing a function backtrace or recovering from the division by zero as appropriate). This allows the writer of the "object code" to get some idea what went wrong with his program.
It behaves differently on two Windows 7-64 systems, that are more or less identical, on what I think is an illegal memory access. The specific problem is that the "object code" (not the well-tested runtime system) somewhere stupidly loads 0x82 into EIP; that is a nonexistent page in the address space AFAIK. I expect a Windows trap though the SEH, and expect to a register dump with EIP=00000082 etc.
On one system, I get exactly that register dump. I could show it here, but it doesn't add anything to my question. So, it is clear the SEH in my runtime system can catch this, and display the situation. This machine does not have any MS development tools on it.
On the other ("mystery") system, with the same exact binaries for runtime system and object code, all I get is the command prompt. No further output. FWIW, this machine has MS Visual Studio 2010 on it. The mystery machine is used heavily for other purposes, and shows no other funny behaviors in normal use.
I assume the behavior difference is caused by a Windows configuration somewhere, or something that Visual Studio controls. It isn't the DEP configuration the system menu; they are both configured (vanilla) as "DEP for standard system processes". And my runtime system executable has "No (/NXCOMPAT:NO)" configured.
Both machines are i7 but different chips, 4 cores, lots of memory, different motherboards. I don't think this is relevant; surely both of these CPUs take traps the same way.
The runtime system includes the following line on startup:
SetErrorMode(SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS | SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX); // stop Windows pop-up on crashes
This was recently added to prevent the "mystery" system from showing a pop-up window, "xxx.exe has stopped working" when the crash occurs. The pop-up box behaviour doesn't happen on the first system, so all this did was push the problem into a different corner on the "mystery" machine.
Any clue where I look to configure/control this?
I provide here the SEH code I am using. It has been edited
to remove a considerable amount of sanity-checking code
that I claim has no effect on the apparant state seen
in this code.
The top level of the runtime system generates a set of worker
threads (using CreateThread) and points to execute ASMGrabGranuleAndGo;
each thread sets up its own SEH, and branches off to a work-stealing scheduler, RunReadyGranule. To the best of my knowledge, the SEH is not changed
after that; at least, the runtime system and the "object code" do
not do this, but I have no idea what the underlying (e.g, standard "C")
libraries might do.
Further down I provide the trap handler, TopLevelEHFilter.
Yes, its possible the register printing machinery itself blows
up causing a second exception. I'll try to check into this again soon,
but IIRC my last attempt to catch this in the debugger on the
mystery machine, did not pass control to the debugger, just
got me the pop up window.
public ASMGrabGranuleAndGo
ASSUME FS:NOTHING ; cancel any assumptions made for this register
ASMGrabGranuleAndGo:
;Purpose: Entry for threads as workers in PARLANSE runtime system.
; Each thread initializes as necessary, just once,
; It then goes and hunts for work in the GranulesQ
; and start executing a granule whenever one becomes available
; install top level exception handler
; Install handler for hardware exceptions
cmp gCompilerBreakpointSet, 0
jne HardwareEHinstall_end ; if set, do not install handler
push offset TopLevelEHFilter ; push new exception handler on Windows thread stack
mov eax, [TIB_SEH] ; expected to be empty
test eax, eax
BREAKPOINTIF jne
push eax ; save link to old exception handler
mov fs:[TIB_SEH], esp ; tell Windows that our exception handler is active for this thread
HardwareEHinstall_end:
;Initialize FPU to "empty"... all integer grains are configured like this
finit
fldcw RTSFPUStandardMode
lock sub gUnreadyProcessorCount, 1 ; signal that this thread has completed its initialization
##: push 0 ; sleep for 0 ticks
call MySleep ; give up CPU (lets other threads run if we don't have enuf CPUs)
lea esp, [esp+4] ; pop arguments
mov eax, gUnreadyProcessorCount ; spin until all other threads have completed initialization
test eax, eax
jne #b
mov gThreadIsAlive[ecx], TRUE ; signal to scheduler that this thread now officially exists
jmp RunReadyGranule
ASMGrabGranuleAndGo_end:
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TopLevelEHFilter: ; catch Windows Structured Exception Handling "trap"
; Invocation:
; call TopLevelEHFilter(&ReportRecord,&RegistrationRecord,&ContextRecord,&DispatcherRecord)
; The arguments are passed in the stack at an offset of 8 (<--NUMBER FROM MS DOCUMENT)
; ESP here "in the stack" being used by the code that caused the exception
; May be either grain stack or Windows thread stack
extern exit :proc
extern syscall #RTSC_PrintExceptionName#4:near ; FASTCALL
push ebp ; act as if this is a function entry
mov ebp, esp ; note: Context block is at offset ContextOffset[ebp]
IF_USING_WINDOWS_THREAD_STACK_GOTO unknown_exception, esp ; don't care what it is, we're dead
; *** otherwise, we must be using PARLANSE function grain stack space
; Compiler has ensured there's enough room, if the problem is a floating point trap
; If the problem is illegal memory reference, etc,
; there is no guarantee there is enough room, unless the application is compiled
; with -G ("large stacks to handle exception traps")
; check what kind of exception
mov eax, ExceptionRecordOffset[ebp]
mov eax, ExceptionRecord.ExceptionCode[eax]
cmp eax, _EXCEPTION_INTEGER_DIVIDE_BY_ZERO
je div_by_zero_exception
cmp eax, _EXCEPTION_FLOAT_DIVIDE_BY_ZERO
je float_div_by_zero_exception
jmp near ptr unknown_exception
float_div_by_zero_exception:
mov ebx, ContextOffset[ebp] ; ebx = context record
mov Context.FltStatusWord[ebx], CLEAR_FLOAT_EXCEPTIONS ; clear any floating point exceptions
mov Context.FltTagWord[ebx], -1 ; Marks all registers as empty
div_by_zero_exception: ; since RTS itself doesn't do division (that traps),
; if we get *here*, then we must be running a granule and EBX for granule points to GCB
mov ebx, ContextOffset[ebp] ; ebx = context record
mov ebx, Context.Rebx[ebx] ; grain EBX has to be set for AR Allocation routines
ALLOCATE_2TOK_BYTES 5 ; 5*4=20 bytes needed for the exception structure
mov ExceptionBufferT.cArgs[eax], 0
mov ExceptionBufferT.pException[eax], offset RTSDivideByZeroException ; copy ptr to exception
mov ebx, ContextOffset[ebp] ; ebx = context record
mov edx, Context.Reip[ebx]
mov Context.Redi[ebx], eax ; load exception into thread's edi
GET_GRANULE_TO ecx
; This is Windows SEH (Structured Exception Handler... see use of Context block below!
mov eax, edx
LOOKUP_EH_FROM_TABLE ; protected by DelayAbort
TRUST_JMP_INDIRECT_OK eax
mov Context.Reip[ebx], eax
mov eax, ExceptionContinueExecution ; signal to Windows: "return to caller" (we've revised the PC to go to Exception handler)
leave
ret
TopLevelEHFilter_end:
unknown_exception:
<print registers, etc. here>
"DEP for standard system processes" won't help you; it's internally known as "OptIn". What you need is the IMAGE_DLLCHARACTERISTICS_NX_COMPAT flag set in the PE header of your .exe file. Or call the SetProcessDEPPolicy function in kernel32.dll The SetProcessMitigationPolicy would be good also... but it isn't available until Windows 8.
There's some nice explanation on Ed Maurer's blog, which explains both how .NET uses DEP (which you won't care about) but also the system rules (which you do).
BIOS settings can also affect whether hardware NX is available.

CPU idle loop without Sleep

I am learning WIN32 ASM right now and I was wondering if there is something like an "idle" infinite loop that doesn't consume any resources at all. Basically I need a running process to experiment with that goes like this:
loop:
; alternative to sleep...
jmp loop
Is there something that may idle the process?
You can't have it both ways. You can either consume the CPU or you can let it do something else. You can conserve power and avoid depriving other cores of resources with rep; nop; (also known as pause), as Vlad Lazarenko suggested. But if you loop without yielding the core to another process, at least that virtual core cannot do anything else.
Note: You should never use empty loops to make the application idle. It will load your processor to 100%
There are several ways to make the application idle, when there is no GUI activity in Win32 environment. The main (documented in MSDN) is to use "GetMessage" function in the main loop in order to extract the messages from the message queue.
When the message queue is empty, this function will idle, consuming very low processor time, waiting for message to arrive in the message queue.
Below is an example, using FASM macro library:
msg_loop:
invoke GetMessage, msg, NULL, 0, 0
cmp eax, 1
jb end_loop
jne msg_loop
invoke TranslateMessage, msg
invoke DispatchMessage, msg
jmp msg_loop
Another approach is used when you want to catch the moment when the application goes to idle state and make some low priority, one-time processing (for example enabling/disabling the buttons on the toolbar, according to the state of the application).
In this case, a combination of PeekMessage and WaitMessage have to be used. PeekMessage function returns immediately, even when the message queue is empty. This way, you can detect this situation and provide some idle tasks to be done, then you have to call WaitMessage in order to idle the process waiting for incoming messages.
Here is an simplified example from my code (using FreshLib macros):
; Main message loop
Run:
invoke PeekMessageA, msg, 0, 0, 0, PM_REMOVE
test eax,eax
jz .empty
cmp [msg.message], WM_QUIT
je .terminate
invoke TranslateMessage, msg
invoke DispatchMessageA, msg
jmp Run
.empty:
call OnIdle
invoke WaitMessage
jmp Run
.terminate:
FinalizeAll
stdcall TerminateAll, 0
What do you mean by "consume resources"?
If you just want a command that does nothing? If so nop will do that, and you can loop as much as you want even: rep; nop. However, the CPU will actually be busy doing work: executing the "no operation" instruction.
If you want an instruction that will cause the CPU itself to stop, then you are sorta-kinda out of luck: although there are ways to do that, you cannot do it from userspace.
With ring 0 access level (like kernel driver), you could use the x86 HLT opcode, but you need to have a system programming skill to really understand how to use it. Using HLT this way requires interrupts to be enabled (not masked) and the guarantee of an interrupt occurring (e.g. system timer), because the return from the interrupt will execute the next instruction after the HLT.
Without ring 0 access you'll never find any x86 opcode to enter an "idle" mode...
You only could find some instructions which consume less power (no memory access, no cache access, no FPU access, low ALU usage...).
Yes, there are some architectures support intrinsic idle state AKA halt.
For example, in x86 hlt, opcode 0xf4. Probably can be called only on privileged mode.
CPU Switches from User mode to Kernel Mode : What exactly does it do? How does it makes this transition?
How to completely suspend the processor?
a Linux's userspace example I found here:
.section .rodata
greeting:
.string "Hello World\n"
.text
_start:
mov $12,%edx /* write(1, "Hello World\n", 12) */
mov $greeting,%ecx
mov $1,%ebx
mov $4,%eax /* write is syscall 4 */
int $0x80
xorl %ebx, %ebx /* Set exit status and exit */
mov $0xfc,%eax
int $0x80
hlt /* Just in case... */

Endless loop with assember

OK, I'm new to PC Assembler. I"m trying to write an program, but it won't stop looping. I'm guessing the ECX register is being modified? How can I fix this? Thanks.
DATA SECTION
;
KEEP DD 0 ;temporary place to keep things
;
CODE SECTION
;
START:
MOV ECX,12
TOPOFLOOP:
PUSH -11 ;STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE
CALL GetStdHandle ;get, in eax, handle to active screen buffer
PUSH 0,ADDR KEEP ;KEEP receives output from API
PUSH 5,'bruce' ;5=length of string
PUSH EAX ;handle to active screen buffer
CALL WriteFile
XOR EAX,EAX ;return eax=0 as preferred by Windows
LOOP TOPOFLOOP
ENDLABEL:
RET
In most x86 calling convention, including the stdcall convention used by Windows API functions, ECX is a caller-save register -- the called function is not required to make sure the value of the register is the same when it returns as when it was called. You have to save it somewhere safe in your own code.

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