Posted on

Workshop @ Hack.lu 2019: Reversing WebAssembly Module 101

2019/10/22 @ Hack.lu 2019

In this workshop, I will first introduce WebAssembly concepts and why it’s consider as a “game changer for the web”. Secondly, I will expose how to analyze a WebAssembly module using different techniques (static & dynamic) as well as some open-source tools that make you the life easier (Octopus, Wasabi, …). Finally, we will hands-on with simple examples/crackmes and finally go throws the analysis of cryptominers.

The following point will be discussed in this workshop.

  1. Introduction
  2. WebAssembly Basics
  3. WebAssembly Runtime VM
  4. Module dissection
  5. Reversing wasm module
  6. Dynamic analysis
  7. Cryptominers
  8. Conclusion

link / slides / repository

Posted on

Talk @ FIRST 2019: Analyze & Detect WebAssembly Cryptominer

2019/06/17 @ FIRST conference 2019

More than one year after the “official” release, it’s heavily used in the wild to perform Cryptojacking (illegitimate in-browser mining) using online services, like Coinhive, that provides simple Javascript API and uses WebAssembly module to make mining even more efficient and profitable than using pure JavaScript.

First, I will introduce WebAssembly concepts and how it is currently used. Secondly, I will analyze some Cryptominer module using static and dynamic analysis (reversing, decompilation, DBI, …) applied on WebAssembly. Finally, I will expose some techniques to detect and mitigate them.

  1. Introduction
  2. WebAssembly Basics
  3. Module dissection
  4. Program analysis
  5. WebAssembly Cryptominers
  6. Analysis (Coinhive & Cryptoloot)
  7. Cryptominers detection
  8. Conclusion

link / slides

Posted on

Workshop @ Northsec 2019: Reversing WebAssembly Module 101

2019/05/21 @ Northsec 2019

In this workshop, I will first introduce WebAssembly concepts and why it’s consider as a “game changer for the web”. Secondly, I will expose different techniques (Static/Dynamic analysis) and tools (Octopus, Wasabi, …) to perform a WebAssembly module analysis. Finally, we will hands-on with basic examples (crackmes) and go throws some real-life cryptominer and web-browsers plugins using WebAssembly module.

Along the talk, I will only used open source tools.

  1. Introduction
  2. WebAssembly Basics
  3. WebAssembly Runtime VM
  4. WebAssembly VM internals
  5. Module dissection
  6. Program analysis
  7. Wasabi
  8. Cryptominers
  9. Firefox addons analysis
  10. Conclusion

link / slides (not yet) / repository

Posted on

Talk @ EthCC 2019: Let’s dig inside Ethereum Smart Contracts compiled to WebAssembly

Ethereum ETHCC Paris reverse webassembly patrick ventuzelo analysis smart contract Parity Kovan mainnet testnet conference talk

2019/02/18 @ EthCC 2019

At Devcon4, Vitalik annonced that WebAssembly (wasm) will be part of Ethereum 2.0 (Serenity). It’s already possible to compile smart contracts to wasm modules and run them in the Kovan network.

Using WebAssembly smart contract doesn’t mean using secure smart contract.

In this talk, I will explain what’s inside a WebAssembly module and illustrate how to analyze wasm Ethereum smart contracts to find vulnerabilities and unoptimization.

  1. Introduction
  2. WebAssembly basics
  3. Program analysis
  4. Parity Helloworld
  5. WASM module Vulnerabilities
  6. Conclusion

link / slides / video

Posted on

Blogpost: Ethereum Threat Actors Part 1 — DotNet Downloader using Ethereum Transactions for C&C updates.

Ethereum threat actor botnet transaction tracking patrick ventuzelo QuoScient C&C updates blockchain blogpost dotnet ilspy etherscan bigquery

2019/02/04 @ QuoScient Medium

As part of our research into how cybercrime actors using the Ethereum blockchain for fraudulent means, we analyzed a DotNet downloader that retrieves the malicious payload from URLs stored inside Ethereum transactions. We analyzed the sample provided by a German Security Researcher, Karsten Hahn @struppigel in this tweet.

  1. Downloader analysis
  2. Main Function
  3. GetLastTransactionHashFromAddress function
  4. GetAdditionalDataFromTransaction function
  5. Transaction analysis
  6. C&C Update Pricing
  7. Blockcypher service
  8. Future of Ethereum botnet
  9. Conclusion
  10. Indicators of Compromise

link / pdf

Posted on

Workshop @ BlackAlps 2018: Reversing and Vulnerability research of Ethereum Smart Contracts

blackalps 2018 ethereum reverse vulnerability research octopus patrick ventuzelo smart contract evm ethereum ETH EVM workshop

2018/11/08 @ BlackAlps 2018

Ethereum is the reference of smart contract platform due to the possibility to create decentralized applications (Dapps) by writing smart contracts. The Solidity source code of those smart contracts are not always available and can contains flaws (reentrancy, integer overflow/underflow, bad randomness, backdoor, ….). Some smart contract handle thousand of ETH and can’t be modified once pushed into the blockchain. More than 90% of them doesn’t provide the associated Solidity source code and that’s also why be able to reverse and analyze Ethereum smart contract (only with the EVM bytecode) make even more sense.

This workshop is intended to bring attendees the basic skills (theoretical and practical) to analyze Ethereum smart contracts. After the workshop, they will be able to reverse, debug and find basic vulnerabilities into real-life smart contracts without having the Solidity source code.

The following points will be covered in the workshop:

  1. Quick introduction of Ethereum
  2. Basic Ethereum testing lab
  3. Reverse engineering of Ethereum smart contracts
  4. Analysis and vulnerability research
  5. Going deeper & Questions

link / slides / video

Posted on

Talk @ Devcon 4 – 2018: Reversing Ethereum Smart Contracts to find out what’s behind EVM bytecode

devcon iv ethereum patrick ventuzelo reverse evm octopus cfg analysis smart contract vulnerability research ocptimization talk

2018/11/01 @ Devcon iv.

Reverse engineering is a common technique used by security researcher to understand and analyze the behavior of closed-source binaries.

If you apply this to Ethereum smart contract (and more specifically on the EVM bytecode), thats allow you to analyze and verify the result of your Solidity source code compilation. 

From a developer point of view, it can save you a lot of time and money if you succeed to detect flaws and missing bytecode optimization.

Also, providing the Solidity source code it’s not mandatory during the smart contract creation, that’s why being able to directly reverse the EVM bytecode make even more sense if you want to understand the behavior of external smart contracts.

slides / video

Posted on

Workshop @ hack.lu 2018: Reversing and Vulnerability research of Ethereum Smart Contracts

hacklu 2018 ethereum reverse vulnerability octopus patrick ventuzelo smart contract evm ethereum ETH

2018/10/18 @ hack.lu 2018

This workshop is intended to bring attendees the basic skills (theoretical and practical) to analyze Ethereum smart contracts. After the workshop, they will be able to reverse, debug and find basic vulnerabilities into real-life smart contracts without having the Solidity source code.

The following points will be covered in the workshop:

  1. Quick introduction of Ethereum
  2. Basic Ethereum testing lab
  3. Reverse engineering of Ethereum smart contracts
  4. Analysis and vulnerability research
  5. Going deeper & Questions

link / slides

Posted on

Talk @ ToorCon XX – 2018: Reversing Ethereum Smart Contracts

toorcon webassembly wasm patrick ventuzelo reversing analysis ethereum evm

2018/09/15 @ ToorCon XX – 2018

Ethereum is the reference of smart contract platform due to the possibility to create decentralized applications (Dapps) by writing smart contracts. The Solidity source code of those smart contracts are not always available and can contains flaws (reentrancy, integer overflow/underflow, bad randomness, backdoor, ….).

Some smart contract handle thousand of ETH and can’t be modified once pushed into the blockchain. More than 90% of them doesn’t provide the associated Solidity source code and that’s also why be able to reverse and analyze Ethereum smart contract (only with the EVM bytecode) make even more sense.

link / slides

Posted on

Talk @ Recon MTL 2018: Reverse Engineering Of Blockchain Smart Contracts

recon montreal reverse ethereum blockchain smart contract neo eos webassembly patrick ventuzelo

RECON Montreal 2018

Many platforms using blockchain technology have emerged in 2017 and take the top 10 position of the cryptocurrencies’s MarketCap. One of the main reasons behind is the possibility to create decentralized applications (dapps) by writing Smart Contracts.

During this presentation, we will analyze the implementation of smart contract mechanism (Virtual Machine, assembly language, instructions sets, …) used by those platforms. We will analyze the assembly languages and instructions sets used by the Virtual Machine of the major blockchain platforms.

We will see how to disassemble and reconstruct the CFG (Control Flow Graph) of those smart contracts and the tools actually available to perform a deeper security analysis.

This talk aims at covering the following platforms:

link / slides / video (not yet)