BeaconHunter

Behavior based monitoring and hunting tool built in C# leveraging ETW tracing. Blue teamers can use this tool to detect and respond to potential Cobalt Strike beacons. Red teamers can use this tool to research ETW bypasses and discover new processes that behave like beacons.

Author: Andrew Oliveau (@AndrewOliveau)

TL;DR

Beacon implants injected in a benign process live in a thread with a Wait:DelayExecution state (probably related to Cobalt Strike's sleep). Find all processes that contain a thread in a Wait:DelayExecution state. Then, leverage ETW tracing to specifically monitor suspicious thread activity:

HTTP/HTTPS callbacks
DNS queries
File system (cd,ls,upload,rm)
Process termination (kill)
Shell commands (run,execute)

Score suspicious behavior. Log, display, and take action against them.

Building / Installation

Pre-compiled

Release

or git clone and go to Release folder.

.NET Framework version

4.5

Nuggets:

Tools -> NuGet Package Manager -> Package Manager Console

Install-Package ConsoleTables -Version 2.4.2
Install-Package Microsoft.Diagnostics.Tracing.TraceEvent -Version 2.0.64
Install-Package System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation -Version 4.3.0

Running BeaconHunter

Open PowerShell or CMD as an Administrator
.\BeaconHunter.exe

MONITOR

Network Beacon Score

Score is determined by calculating the time difference between beacon callbacks (delta), then calculating the 1st derivative of delta, and then feeding the answer to an inverse function 100/x where x is the 1st derivative of delta. (Note: There is probably a better way, but it works)