REMnux v6 - A Linux Toolkit for Reverse-Engineering and Analyzing Malware

REMnux is a free Linux toolkit for assisting malware analysts with reverse-engineering malicious software. It strives to make it easier for forensic investigators and incident responders to start using the variety of freely-available tools that can examine malware, yet might be difficult to locate or set up.

The heart of the project is the REMnux Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. This lightweight distro incorporates many tools for analyzing Windows and Linux malware, examining browser-based threats such as obfuscated JavaScript, exploring suspicious document files and taking apart other malicious artifacts. Investigators can also use the distro to intercept suspicious network traffic in an isolated lab when performing behavioral malware analysis.

Malware Analyis Tools Installed on REMnux

The REMnux distribution includes many free tools useful for examining malicious software. These utilities are set up and tested to make it easier for you to perform malware analysis tasks without needing to figure out how to install them. The majority of these tools are listed below.

Examine Browser Malware

Website analysis: Thug, mitmproxy, Network Miner Free Edition, curl, Wget, Burp Proxy Free Edition, Automater, pdnstool, Tor, tcpextract, tcpflow, passive.py, CapTipper
Flash: xxxswf, SWF Tools, RABCDAsm, extract_swf, Flare
Java: Java Cache IDX Parser, JD-GUI Java Decompiler, JAD Java Decompiler, Javassist, CFR
JavaScript: Rhino Debugger, ExtractScripts, Firebug, SpiderMonkey, V8, JS Beautifier

Examine Document Files

PDF: AnalyzePDF, Pdfobjflow, pdfid, pdf-parser, peepdf, Origami, PDF X-RAY Lite, PDFtk, swf_mastah
Microsoft Office: officeparser, pyOLEScanner.py, oletools, libolecf, oledump, emldump
Shellcode: sctest, unicode2hex-escaped, unicode2raw, dism-this, shellcode2exe

Extract and Decode Artifacts

Deobfuscate: unXOR, XORStrings, ex_pe_xor, XORSearch, brutexor/iheartxor, xortool, NoMoreXOR, XORBruteForcer, Balbuzard
Extract strings: strdeobj, pestr, strings
Carving: Foremost, Scalpel, bulk_extractor, Hachoir

Handle Network Interactions

Sniffing: Wireshark, ngrep, TCPDump, tcpick
Services: FakeDNS, Nginx, fakeMail, Honeyd, INetSim, Inspire IRCd, OpenSSH, accept-all-ips
Miscellaneous network: prettyping.sh, set-static-ip, renew-dhcp, Netcat, EPIC IRC Client, stunnel

Process Multiple Samples

Maltrieve, Ragpicker, Viper, MASTIFF, Density Scout

Examine File Properties and Contents

Define signatures: YaraGenerator, IOCextractor, Autorule, Rule Editor
Scan: Yara, ClamAV, TrID, ExifTool, virustotal-submit, Disitool
Hashes: nsrllookup, Automater, Hash Identifier, totalhash, ssdeep, virustotal-search, VirusTotalApi

Investigate Linux Malware

System: Sysdig, Unhide
Disassemble: Vivisect, Udis86, objdump
Debug: Evan’s Debugger (EDB), GNU Project Debugger (GDB)
Trace: strace, ltrace
Investigate: Radare 2, Pyew, Bokken, m2elf

Edit and View Files

Text: SciTE, Geany, Vim
Images: feh, ImageMagick
Binary: wxHexEditor, VBinDiff
Documents: Xpdf

Examine Memory Snapshots

Volatility Framework, findaes, AESKeyFinder, RSAKeyFinder, VolDiff, Rekall

Statically Examine PE Files

Unpacking: UPX, Bytehist, Density Scout, PackerID
Disassemble: objdump, Udis86, Vivisect
Find anomalies: Signsrch, pescanner, ExeScan, pev, Peframe, pedump
Investigate: Bokken, RATDecoders, Pyew, readpe.py, PyInstaller Extractor

Investigate Mobile Malware

Androwarn, AndroGuard

Perform Other Tasks

ProcDOT, bashhacks, Docker, vtTool, REMnux Updater, Decompyle++

REMnux Documentation

REMnux documentation is a relatively recent effort, which can provide additional details regarding the toolkit. The document set in need of improvement and expansion.

The one-page REMnux cheat sheet highlights some of the most useful tools and commands available as part of the REMnux distro. It’s an especially nice starting point for people who are new to the distribution.