The Duqu 2.0: Technical Details

www.kaspersky.com
The
duqu 2.0
Technical Details
Version: 2.0 (9 June 2015)

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details2
For any inquiries, please contact intelreports@kaspersky.com
Contents
Executive summary 3
initial attack 4
Lateral movement 4
Analysis of a Duqu 2.0 MSI package 7
File properties 7
First Layer: ActionDLL (msi.dll) 10
Second Layer: ActionData0 10
Third Layer: klif.dll 11
Attacking AVP.EXE 12
CTwoPENC.dll zero-day and KMART.dll 14
Payload Containers and Migration 15
Payload type “L” 15
Payload run type “G” 16
Payload run type “I” 16
Payload run type “K” 17
Payload run type “Q” 17
Platform plugginable modules 17
Persistence mechanism 33
Command and control mechanisms 33
The “portserv.sys” driver analysis 35
Similarities between Duqu and Duqu 2.0 37
Victims of Duqu 2.0 42
Attribution 43
Conclusions 44
References 45

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details3
Executive summary
Earlier this year, during a security sweep, Kaspersky Lab detected a cyber intrusion
affecting several of its internal systems.
Following this finding, we launched a large-scale investigation, which led to the
discovery of a new malware platform from one of the most skilled, mysterious and
powerful groups in the APT world – Duqu. The Duqu threat actor went dark in 2012 and
was believed to have stopped working on this project - until now. Our technical analysis
indicates the new round of attacks include an updated version of the infamous 1
2011
Duqu malware, sometimes referred to as the step-brother of 2
Stuxnet. We named this
new malware and its associated platform “Duqu 2.0”.
Victims of Duqu 2.0 have been found in several places, including western countries, the
Middle East and Asia. The actor appears to compromise both final and utilitarian targets,
which allow them to improve their cyber capabilities.
Most notably, some of the new 2014-2015 infections are linked to the P5+1 events and
venues related to the negotiations with Iran about a nuclear deal. The threat actor behind
Duqu appears to have launched attacks at the venues for some of these high level talks.
In addition to the P5+1 events, the Duqu 2.0 group has launched a similar attack in
relation to the 3
70th anniversary event of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In the case of Kaspersky Lab, the attack took advantage of a zero-day (CVE-2015-2360)
in the WindowsKernel, patched by Microsoft on June 9 2015 and possibly up to two
other, currently patched vulnerabilities, which were zeroday at that time.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duqu
2 http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2011/Duqu_The_Step_Brother_of_Stuxnet
3 http://70.auschwitz.org/index.php?lang=en

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details4
initial attack
The initial attack against Kaspersky Lab began with the targeting of an employee in
one of our smaller APAC offices. The original infection vector for Duqu 2.0 is currently
unknown, although we suspect spear-phishing e-mails played an important role. This is
because for one of the patients zero we identified had their mailbox and web browser
history wiped to hide traces of the attack. Since the respective machines were fully
patched, we believe a zero-day exploit was used.
In 2011, we were able to identify Duqu attacks that used Word Documents containing an
exploit for a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2011-3402) that relied on a malicious embedded
TTF (True Type Font File). This exploit allowed the attackers to jump directly into Kernel
mode from a Word Document, a very powerful, extremely rare, technique. A similar
technique and zero-day exploit ( 4
CVE-2014-4148) appeared again in June 2014, as part
of an attack against a prominent international organization. The CC server used in this
2014 attack as well as other factors have certain similarities with Duqu, however, the
malware is different from both Duqu and Duqu 2.0. It is possible that this is a parallel
project from the Duqu group and the same zero-day (CVE-2014-4148) might have been
used to install Duqu 2.0.
Once the attackers successfully infected one machine, they moved on to the next stage.
Lateral movement
In general, once the attackers gain access into a network, two phases follow:
• Reconnaissance and identification of network topology
• Lateral movement
In the case of Duqu 2.0, the lateral movement technique appears to have taken
advantage of another zero-day, (CVE-2014-6324) which was patched in November 2014
with 5
MS14-068 . This exploit allows an unprivileged domain user to elevate credentials
to a domain administrator account. Although we couldn’t retrieve a copy of this exploit,
the logged events match the Microsoft detection guidance for this attack. Malicious
modules were also observed performing a “pass the hash” attack inside the local
network, effectively giving the attackers many different ways to do lateral movement.
Once the attackers gained domain administrator privileges, they can use these
permissions to infect other computers in the domain.
To infect other computers in the domain, the attackers use few different strategies. In
most of the attacks we monitored, they prepare Microsoft Windows Installer Packages
(MSI) and then deploy them remotely to other machines. To launch them, the attackers
create a service on the target machine with the following command line:
msiexec.exe /i “C:[…]tmp8585e3d6.tmp” /q PROP=9c3c7076-d79f-4c
4 https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2014/10/two-targeted-attacks-two-new-zero-days.html
5 https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/MS14-068

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details5
The PROP value above is set to a random 56-bit encryption key that is required to
decrypt the main payload from the package. Other known names for this parameter
observed in the attacks are “HASHVA” and “CKEY”. The folder where the package is
deployed can be different from case to case, depending on what the attackers can
access on the remote machine.
In addition to creating services to infect other computers in the LAN, attackers can also
use the Task Scheduler to start “msiexec.exe” remotely. The usage of Task Scheduler
during Duqu infections for lateral movement was also observed with the 2011 version
and was described by 6
Symantec in their technical analysis.
The MSI files used in the attacks contain a malicious stub inside which serves as a loader.
The stub loads the other malware resources right from the MSI file and decrypts them,
before passing execution to the decrypted code in memory.
The encryption algorithms used for these packages differ from case to case. It’s
important to point out that the attackers were careful enough to implement unique
methods, encryption algorithms and names (such as file names) for each attack, as a
method to escape detection from security products and limit the ability of an antivirus
company to find other infections once one of them has been identified.
So far, we’ve seen the following encryption algorithms used by the attackers:
• Camellia
• AES
6 http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_duqu_the_precursor_to_
the_next_stuxnet.pdf
“msiexec.exe” - Task Scheduler trace in the logs
Malicious stub with query to load the other resources from the MSI file highlighted.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details6
• XTEA
• RC4
• Different multibyte XOR-based encryption
For compression algorithms, we’ve seen the following:
• LZJB
• LZF
• FastLZ
• LZO
In essence, each compiled attack platform uses a unique combination of algorithms that
make it very difficult to detect.
The attackers can deploy two types of packages to their victims:
• “Basic”, in-memory remote backdoor (~500K)
• Fully featured, CC-capable, in-memory espionage platform (18MB)
These have similar structures and look like the following:
In the screenshot above, one can see the loader (ActionDll: 17,920 bytes) and the main
payload (ActionData0: 476,736 bytes). Upon execution, ActionDll is loaded and control is
passed to its only export, StartAction.
The “basic” in-memory remote backdoor is pushed to computers inside the domain
by the Domain Controller on a regular basis – almost like a worm infection. This gives
the attackers an entry into most of the machines from the domain and if further access
is needed, they can upload a more sophisticated MSI file that deploys tens of different
plugins to harvest information.
Malicious Duqu 2.0 MSI package.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details7
A thorough description of the malware loading mechanism from the “basic” remove
backdoor MSI can be found below.
Analysis of a Duqu 2.0 MSI package
Filename: random / varies from case to case
MD5 (example, can vary): 14712103ddf9f6e77fa5c9a3288bd5ee
Size: 503,296 bytes
File properties
The MSI file has the following general properties:
• Composite Document File V2 Document
• Little Endian
• OS: Windows, Version 6.1
• Code page: 1252
• Title: {7080A304-67F9-4363-BBEB-4CD7DB43E19D} (randomly generated GUIDs)
• Subject: {7080A304-67F9-4363-BBEB-4CD7DB43E19D}
• Author: {7080A304-67F9-4363-BBEB-4CD7DB43E19D}
• Keywords: {7080A304-67F9-4363-BBEB-4CD7DB43E19D}
• Comments: {7080A304-67F9-4363-BBEB-4CD7DB43E19D}
• Template: Intel;1033
• Last Saved By: {7080A304-67F9-4363-BBEB-4CD7DB43E19D}
• Revision Number: {4ADA4205-2E5B-45B8-AAC2-D11CFD1B7266}
• Number of Pages: 100
• Number of Words: 8
• Name of Creating Application: Windows Installer XML (3.0.5419.0)
• Security: 4
It should be noted that MSI files used in other attacks can have different other properties.
For example, we observed several other fields:
• Vendor: Microsoft or InstallShield
• Version: 1.0.0.0 or 1.1.2.0 or 2.0.0.0

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details8
Some of these are visible via the Windows Explorer file properties dialog box:
There are two binary blocks inside this MSI package:

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details9
The first binary, called ActionDll, is in fact a Windows PE DLL file, while the other one
is a Camellia-encrypted and LZJB-compressed data payload (the encryption and
compression algorithm vary from case to case). In fact, there are several layers of
executable code embedded one into another as compressed or encrypted binary blocks.
Here’s a look at a Duqu 2.0 MSI package, with all its internal payloads:
We describe these components in more detail below.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details10
First Layer: ActionDLL (msi.dll)
Original filename: msi.dll
MD5: e8eaec1f021a564b82b824af1dbe6c4d
Size: 17’920 bytes
Link time: 2004.02.12 02:04:50 (GMT)
Type: 64-bit PE32+ executable DLL for MS Windows
This DLL has only one export name called StartAction, which is called in the context of
msiexec.exe process. When this function is called, it retrieves an MSI property called
PROP and uses it as a decryption key for the bundled ActionData0 package:
Next, the code iterates over 12 possible
payloads that have to be decrypted and
started. The payloads are part of the
MSI and may have the following names:
ActionData0, ActionData1, ActionData2,
etc.
The package described here contains
only one payload named “ActionData0”.
Second Layer: ActionData0
This binary chunk contains the main code, in
compressed and encrypted format. It represents a
composition of executable, position-independent code
blocks mixed with embedded data objects. The code
seems to be based on a framework and heavily uses
helper structures that contain pointers to a set of system
APIs and offsets to internal data blocks. Such structures
are definitely a trademark of the developer. When they
are initialized, one field (usually the first 4 bytes) contains
a magic value that identifies the state and type of the
structure.
Another trademark of the coder is the way to import
system API by module and export name hashes. The
hashing algorithm was found all over this and other
layers of executable code. It’s easily recognizable by two
DWORD constants: 0x8A20C27 and 0x67F84FC6.
Basically, the code in ActionData0 passes execution
to an embedded executable, which we will refer by its
internal name: “klif.dll”. The execution is passed to the
second exported function in table of exports of this DLL
file. This disregards the export name and relies only on
the order of functions in the table of PE export ordinals.
When this export function is called, a next stage helper structure pointer is passed to it,
so that it can use some of the values set on the upper layer.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details11
However, before passing execution to klif.dll, the code attempts alternative routes.
First, it attempts to find the name of the following format “api-ms-win-shell-XXXX.
dll”, where “X” can be any decimal number. The name is valid if there is no module with
such filename loaded into current process. The code attempts to iteratively find such
name starting from api-ms-win-shell-0000.dll, api-ms-win-shell-0001.dll, api-ms-win-
shell-0002.dll and so on. This may be a dependency to the Duqu platform component
that is yet to be discovered.
Right after this, if the name was found, the code attempts to map a section kernel object
by name, which is generated using a PRNG-based algorithm. The name of the section
has the following template: “BaseNamedObjects{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-
XXXXXXXX}”, where “X” is any hexadecimal digit that is generated based on current
system boot time. So far, the name of the section is “machine/boot time” dependent,
which makes it unique but allows other processes of modules to locate such section if
they use the same name generation algorithm. This section is accessed in different other
parts of the code and modules. Lets refer to this section as OSBoot-section from now.
Once the section name is generated the code tries to open such section and, if it is
found, it takes some values from it and attempts to open a specific device and issue a
number of IOCTL codes to the driver. The name of the driver device as well as IOCTL
codes are located inside a section of the kernel mode driver KMART.dll that is described
below.
The code developer has a preference for using sections to any other ways to access
data. Another use of sections appears to be in mapping the part of code/data where
klif.dll is embedded and then finding that section using a hardcoded magic QWORD
number: 0xA1B5F8FC0C2E1064. Once the section is found in address space of current
process the code attempts to pass execution to it. This alternative execution route is
not applicable to current MSI file package but simply exists in the code probably due
to common code template used for building current MSI package. It may also be an
indicator of another Duqu platform component that wasn’t used in the attacks that we
observed.
Third Layer: klif.dll
Original filename: klif.dll
MD5: 3fde1bbf3330e0bd0952077a390cef72
Size: 196’096 bytes
Link time: 2014.07.06 08:36:50 (GMT)
Type: 64-bit PE32+ executable DLL for MS Windows
Apparently, this file attempts to mimic some of legitimate names of Kaspersky Lab
product components: “klif.sys”. Although there is neither similarity in code nor in file
information, the module uses Kaspersky Lab acronym in it’s export names: KLInit and
KLDone.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details12
When this DLL is loaded into a new process, it simply initializes internal structures, such
as those providing pointers to the required system API.
The real payload of this module is located in the KLDone export function, which is
second in the list of the export table. This export function is called from the previous
code layer.
First, it makes sure that global application structure is initialized with essential functions
from ntdll.dll, kernel32.dll and user32.dll. System API functions are imported using hashes
of export names. The hashing algorithm is identical to the one described one layer above
and uses the same magic constants: 0x8A20C27 and 0x67F84FC6.
Next the code iterates through the list of running processes and hashes lowercase name
of each process. The hash is compared to a hardcoded value of 0x3E3021CB, which is a
hash for the “avp.exe” string.
Attacking AVP.EXE
If the “avp.exe” process is running, the module attempts to open the OSBoot-section as
described before and tries to attack the avp.exe process. The attack starts from
identifying the exact path to the installed Kaspersky Lab product by iterating through an
array of hardcoded registry keys and values for the following products:
The registry values queried by the module contain a filesystem path to the root directory
where the corresponding product is installed. For example: “C:Program FilesKaspersky
LabKaspersky Internet Security 15.0.0”
Once the registry key and value is found, the module confirms that avp.exe file is located
in that directory. It does some basic file availability checks as well: makes sure that
environment variables are resolved and the file can be opened for reading and it begins
with 0x5A4D (magic “MZ” value of Windows executables).
After that, the module creates a new section and maps avp.exe as a file view to this
section. To allow code execution, the attributes of this memory region are also changed
accordingly. This allows the module to change bytes from the mapped avp.exe in
memory. The module applies two patches to the mapped avp.exe in a quite unusual way
using SSE2 CPU extensions. In fact, it patches just the old DOS PE header (less than 120
bytes). The patches are simple callback mechanisms that call arbitrary function passed as
an argument.
Right after this, the module attempts to start a new thread that begins with one of the
patched locations. So far, it looks like the new thread begins with a call originating from
avp.exe module that does some other calls, i.e. jumping back to klif.dll. Apparently, this
KES12
KES11
KES10
AVP16.0.0
AVP16
AVP15.0.0
AVP15
AVP14.0.0
AVP14
AVP13
AVP12
AVP11
AVP10
KES9
KES8
AVP80
AVP90
AVP9
AVP8
AVP7
AVP6

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details13
attack was introduced to trick the avp.exe process into believing that further calls will
be safe and trusted as the root of the call stack is coming from the legitimate avp.exe
module. This is what we see further down in the code: the new thread instantly jumps
from avp.exe back to klif.dll and tries to communicate with the Kaspersky Lab product
minifilter driver, known as klif.sys.
In fact, just before communicating with klif.sys, it opens OSBoot-section and gets an
IOCTL code as well as the driver device name to send this IOCTL code to. The section
and corresponding driver (KMART.dll) provide certain support to the current module. The
code hashes current process name and verifies if it falls down into one of three hashes:
0x3E3021CB (avp.exe), 0xDE6D4DA0 (msiexec.exe), 0xB915B2D8 (rundll32.exe).
If current process name hash is recognized, the module communicates with klif.sys
by opening KlifComm minifilter communication port and sending series of driver
communication messages. According to analysis of the messages, this technique
makes process or thread operations “invisible” to the klif interceptor. Such registered
entity is considered to be trusted and its activity is removed from AV-scanning, process
monitoring, firewall and other defense engines that are subscribed to intercepted events.
In addition, the module requests support of the self-defense feature of Kaspersky Lab
product, which is normally used to protect the software from aggressive malware which
kills the security software processes using a number of techniques available from the
OS. This of course guarantees that even a user with administrative privileges cannot stop
such process.
Considering that this seemed to be an attack against Kaspersky Lab products, we did
some additional tests of the products and found that current products verify the caller
process by checking its custom digital signature. So far, without additional driver support,
this technique should fail. Verification of the digital signature of the process that opened
KlifComm minifilter communication port was implemented in all Kaspersky Lab
products since 2010. So far, this could affect only
older products such as KIS2010, which was
released by Kaspersky Lab in 2009 ►
It doesn’t look realistic now that the attackers
started implementing tricks against Kaspersky
Lab products in 2009 or earlier. So we looked for
another rational explanation and seem to have
found it.
Such an attack doesn’t normally work against
our products because they verify that the caller
process is legitimate by checking its custom digital
signature. To bypass this, the Duqu 2.0 component
named “KMART.dll” patches “klif.sys” in memory to
bypass this check. The attack works because the
attacker’s “KMART.dll” is already running in kernel
mode due to a vulnerability in the Windows kernel.
After sending the codes, the module proceeds to the next stage, which is process
migration, described further below.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details14
CTwoPENC.dll zero-day and KMART.dll
The third layer klif.dll performs a multitude of functions in order to ensure the survival of
the malware in memory and bypass antivirus detections.
One important step is to get kernel level access. On 64-bit systems, one cannot simply
load and run kernel mode code without a signed driver. While other attackers such
as Equation or Turla chose to piggyback on third-party signed drivers, the Duqu 2.0
platform relies on a much more cunning trick.
One of the payloads bundled together with “klif.dll” is called “CTwoPENC.dll”. This is
aWindows kernel mode exploit (CVE-2015-2360) that allows them to run code with the
highest privileges in the system We recovered several versions of “CTwoPENC.dll”, both
for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, with the following compilation timestamps:
• 2014.08.25 01:20:04 (GMT)
• 2014.08.25 01:19:03 (GMT)
• 2014.07.06 09:17:03 (GMT)
Unlike other Duqu 2.0 modules, these timestamps appear to be legitimate. The reason
for this remains unknown – perhaps the Duqu platform developers got this module from
somebody else and forgot to patch its compilation timestamp.
“CTwoPENC.DLL” exploits a zero-day vulnerability in “win32k.sys” to gain kernel privileges
while being run as an unprivileged user. It creates several windows with classes named
“CPer”, “Zero”, “CTwo”, “Vero” in several threads and manipulates the callback pointers.
The main purpose of the exploit is to load a driver named “KMART.dll”. If the exploit
succeeds, it decompresses “KMART.dll” from the module’s body and passes control
Part of the exploit code that registers window classes and creates new windows.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details15
to it while running in kernel mode. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the “KMART.
DLL” exist. This driver implements a kernel-mode attack against the Kaspersky Lab
products filter “klif.sys”. It patches the import table addresses of system API functions
PsGetCurrentProcessId, PsLookupProcessByProcessId and KlGetStringRef export of
Kaspersky Lab’s anti-virus driver klflt.sys. The intercepted functions are preceded by
malicious code that impersonates the other malicious modules as coming from the
process/file “avp.exe” (using the actual location of the anti-virus component), thus
evading monitoring by the anti-virus software.
During testing, the zero-day exploit worked on all contemporary Windows versions (XP,
Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 both 32-bit and 64-bit). This vulnerability has been patched by Microsoft
on June 9, 2015.”
Payload Containers and Migration
The module supports a number for different payloads provided in the form of containers
following klif.dll in memory (located in PE overlay).
A payload container contains a short header describing target CPU architecture, payload
type and target process name or hash. When the module uses some embedded code or
file there is normally at least two variants of code bundled inside: 32 and 64-bit.
Each payload run type is identified by a single character. Current module supports
the following 5 payload run types: g, i, k, l, q. Seems like the developer used ordered
alphabet characters, which means that there could be other payload run types which
were removed from the code at some time. Currently the container located in the
overlay of subject executable contains a “l” character as a payload run type, so lets
describe it first.
Payload type “L”
First, the code looks for privileges from other processes. The process handle can be
hardcoded or obtained by looking for currently running processes, hashing their names
and comparing them to one of known hashes. The module includes the following
hardcoded process hashes:
0x31283314 (services.exe), 0x1026D1BA (lsass.exe), 0x3BD2498C (svchost.exe).
If any of the recognized processes are found, the module opens process token and
verifies that the following privileges are available:
• SeDebugPrivilege
• SeTcbPrivilege
• SeAssignPrimaryTokenPrivilege
• SeIncreaseQuotaPrivilege
• SeImpersonatePrivilege
• SeRestorePrivilege
If they are available the module duplicates process token and saves it into an internal
structure for future use.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details16
The module looks for one of the available security suites installed in current system and
some generic processes if nothing was found. It attempts to find executable files of the
following software:
• More than 20 different Kaspersky Lab products
• McAfee VSCore, SystemCore, HIP
• Symantec Internet Security
• Bitdefender
• ESET
• H+BEDV
• TrendMicro Network Security Component
• Rising AV
• Avast
• AVG 2012/2013/2014/2015
• F-Secure
• Qihoo 360 Security
• Generic Windows Processes:
oo %ProgramFiles(x86)%Windows DefenderMsMpEng.exe
oo %SystemRoot%syswow64svchost.exe
oo %SystemRoot%system32lsass.exe
oo %SystemRoot%system32svchost.exe
When such an executable is found and eventually it should (at least svchost or lsass.
exe should be present), it runs a new process from discovered location and replaces
its executable code with own embedded into current executable in encrypted and
compressed form.
If the code manages to find a security token from one of the processes with required
security privileges, it will try to use this token when creating a new process using
CreateProcessAsUser API. Otherwise it simply spawns new process instance.
The new process is started in suspended and debugged state. Just before starting the
new process it disables DEP for the child processes to simplify code injection and data
manipulation. So far, from the outside, it may look like a security software was started,
while from the inside its code is completely different from legitimate module.
Payload run type “G”
This payload is almost identical to payload L described above, but the loader is simpler
- it skips hijacking of privileged token. Code injection target is selected automatically
depending on the availability of known processes.
Payload run type “I”
This payload is similar to payload G, but makes the loader parse payload header a bit
differently: instead of process name string it takes only 4 bytes, which are supposedly
used as a process hash. This seems to be a way to hide target process name and
use only hash, however this hasn’t been implemented completely in the module we
analyzed.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details17
Payload run type “K”
This payload is designed to run within the context of the current process. The code
simply copies the code to be executed into separate memory and runs it in a dedicated
thread. It blocks until thread finishes its execution.
Payload run type “Q”
This payload is identical to payload K described above but it doesn’t block execution
when a new thread is started. So far, the new code runs asynchronously.
After the payload container is opened and code migrated to another process, which can
be elevated and protected from security software, the real malicious code is activated.
In most cases, it is simple named pipe based backdoor that listens for incoming
communications from the orchestrator. In rare cases, on selected machines, it can be
heavy orchestrator module that communicates with command and control server, works
as a bidirectional proxy and comes with a large bundle of secondary plugins.
Platform plugginable modules
In addition to the basic remote backdoor, the attackers deploy more sophisticated
packages to domain controllers and to the victims of interest inside the LAN. These MSI
packages can contain tens of different modules designed for various cyberespionage
functions.
The fully featured packages are much larger than the basic remote backdoor – 18MB
vs 500KB. They follow the same structure, with ActionDll and the loader mechanism,
except they contain a lot more plugins to load and run.
During our analysis, we identified more than 100 variants of such plugins.
A description of these plugins follows. To separate them, we used a virtual identifier
based on the first two bytes of their MD5 sum.
03B7 – The main module of Duqu 2.0, orchestrator.
Implements multiple protocol handlers for CC communication, can start an
intermediate CC proxy server with a self-signed HTTPS certificate. Starts the plugin
framework, loads and manages all additional plugins.
It works via HTTP, HTTPS, SMB network pipes or direct TCP connection using a custom,
encrypted protocol. Interaction via HTTP is concealed in JPEG or GIF files, similar to the
2011 version of Duqu. Request names, URLs and User-Agent strings may vary between
attacks.
Additional known variants: 3026, 4F11.
0682 – Collects basic system information:
• List of running processes
• Active desktop and terminal sessions

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details18
Collected information is then transmitted to a named pipe provided by the caller.
Additional known variants: C0B7
073C – Implements a complete Windows socket-based transport, both client and
server side. Provides a class factory for the class that encapsulates various networking
functions.
0872 – MSI CustomAction library that is activated when the malicious installer package
is started by the Windows Installer. Loads the encrypted binary blob that contains actual
malicious payload, decrypts and then executes it in memory.
The names in version information vary: svcmsi_32.dll, msi3_32.dll, MSI.dll, msi4_32.dll.
Encryption algorithms also vary: Camellia 256, AES, XXTEA.
The decryption key is extracted from an MSI parameter, possible names: PROP,
HASHVA, CKEY.
The encrypted blob is searched by prefixes (can vary): ActionData, CryptHashs, CAData.
Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are known. Additional known variants: 8D7C, 16EF, E6E5,
434C, 44BD, F708.
09A0 – 64-bit, Exfiltrates file contents, particularly searching for files matching these
rules:
• *.inuse, *.hml
• filename contains “data.hmi” or “val.dat”
• files from the /Int/HMI/ or /LG/HM/ folders.
Additional known variants: 8858
0AB8 – Provides 25 functions for manipulating files and directories:
• List files in directories
• Upload and download arbitrary files
• Read/write file contents
File and directory names of interest for the 09A0 plugin.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details19
In several cases, the modules are looking specifically for directories named “int”, “lg”, “
ofmd”, “tl”, “ak” and files with extensions “.part”, “.manual”, “.inuse”.
Additional known variants: A69E.
0B97 – Network transport. Implements API for connecting sockets and pipes provided
by the caller. Additional variant: 56A2.
152B – Network and domain discovery.
• Enumerates all servers in the domain
• Tries to connect to remote registries and enumerate all users in “HKEY_USERS”.
Usernames are then converted to SIDs
• Enumerates all visible network shares
Additional known variants: A987
1C71 – In-memory storage. Receives and stores string data in file mappings.
2125 – Network infection module. Tries to acquire administrative credentials from the
running processes and then connect to a target machine using Windows shares. The
machine is infected with a malicious DLL backdoor, the target directory varies and may
be in UPDROOT$, ADMIN$ or C$. Uses custom SMB packets to identify the target OS
version. The target malicious DLL is then started using a new service created with a name
“svcmsi_32@”. The module communicates with the target backdoor via Windows pipes.
Additional variant: DB65. Instead of the malicious DLL, it uploads a new MSI package and
then relies on MSIEXEC.EXE to start the MSI via a newly created service named
“msisvc_32@”, the target MSI name is generated randomly using a template “tmp%x.
tmp”.
Administrative credentials are acquired by stealing a token from any running process that
was started by a logged on user having domain administrator’s rights. For that, it first
File and directory names of interest for the 0AB8 plugin.
Example of a Windows event log (System) entry created
at the moment of infection.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details20
queries for the first 100 administrative usernames in the current domain directly from the
domain controller.
24B7 – Remote desktop administration. Acquires the screenshots of the desktop but
also can send input to the desktop, move the mouse cursor. Both 32-bit and 64-bit
variants exist. Additional known variants: 65BE, 7795, BDC8, DEE2
26D6 – Detects running network sniffers (wireshark, tcpview, netstat, dumpcap,
perfmon); implements a TCP server and communicates via network pipes. Internal
name: “P.dll”.
2829 – Collects system information
• Monitors USB device attachment
• Collects USB drive history
• Enumerates network shares, windows captions, system routing tables
• Reads/writes encrypted files
2913 - WMI data collection
• Enumerate profiles with SIDs
• For each profile, extracts information from lnk files in the profile directory
• Enumerate processes via WMI (CIMV2), including terminated processes
• Extracts user information from available remote registries
Additional known variant: C776
29D4 - Service msisvc_32@; DLL backdoor that is used for network infection by
module 2125. Accepts commands via named pipe “Global{B54E3268-DE1E-4c1e-A667-
2596751403AD}”. Both 32-bit and 64-bit variants exists.
Remote locations used by the network infection module.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details21
Additional known variants: 6F92, A505, D242
2B46 – Extensive collection of system and user information
• Domain controller’s name
• List of users in the domain
• Administrators of the domain
• Enumerates domain trusts
• TCP tables
• UDP tables
• SNMP discovery (OS, parse all replies)
• USB drive history, mounted devices
• Installed programs
• Time zone
• OS install date
• ODBC.ini, SQL Server instance info, Oracle ALL_HOMES, SyBase, DB2, MS SQL,
MySQL last connections
• DHCP/routing
• Network profiles
• Zero Config parameters
• Connected printers
• MRU list for WinRAR, WinZip, Office, IE typed URLs, mapped network drives, Visual
Studio MRU
• Terminal Service Client default username hint
• User Assist history
• PuTTY host keys and sessions
• Logged on users
• Network adapter configuration
• VNC clients passwords
• Scan the network and identify OS using SMB packet
Some of the registry locations harvested by the module.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details22
Additional known variants: A7F8
2BF7 - Utility DLL. Provides basic API for creating new MSI packages, loading and
injecting arbitrary PE modules. Also responsible for loading the first level of the VFS
inside the malicious MSI files. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions exist.
Known names: “ntdll.dll”, “klif.dll”, “apiset.dll”.
Additional known variants: 6DA1, 32DB, 8304, 9931, 9E60, A2D4, ABA9, B3BB, DC5F,
DD32, F7BB
3395 – MS SQL discovery module. Module can send ARP packets to network and
discover MS SQL Server ports. Additional functions are responsible for connecting and
reading of remote registry contents.
35E9 – File system discovery.
• Enumerate network shares
• Enumerate local disks
• Traverse files system hierarchy and enumerate files; identify reparse points
3F45 – Pipe backdoor. Opens a new globally visible named Windows pipe, receives and
executes encrypted commands. The “magic” string that identifies the encrypted protocol
is “tttttttt”.
• Enumerates running processes
• Loads and executes arbitrary PE files
Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions exist.
Known pipe names:
• .pipe{AAFFC4F0-E04B-4C7C-B40A-B45DE971E81E} .pipe{AB6172ED-8105-
4996-9D2A-597B5F827501}
• .pipe{0710880F-3A55-4A2D-AA67-1123384FD859} .pipe{6C51A4DB-E3DE-
4FEB-86A4-32F7F8E73B99}
• .pipe{7F9BCFC0-B36B-45EC-B377-D88597BE5D78}, .pipe{57D2DE92-CE17-
4A57-BFD7-CD3C6E965C6A}
Additional known variants: 6364, 3F8B, 5926, A90A, DDF0, A717, A36F, 8816, E85E, E927

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details23
4160 - Password stealer
• Extracts Google Chrome and Firefox login data
• LSA credentials
Additional known variants: B656
41E2 – Password stealer. 64-bit module. Extracts:
• IE IntelliForms history
• POP3/HTTP/IMAP passwords
• TightVNC, RealVNC, WinVNC3/4 passwords
• Outlook settings
• SAM, LSASS cache
• Windows Live, .Net Passport passwords
Additional known variants: 992E, AF68, D49F
482F – Collects system information.
• Enumerates disk drives
• Gets list of running processes
• Extensive process information including uptime
Data used to locate Chrome saved logins.
References to information collected by the module.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details24
• Memory information
• SID information
Additional known variants: F3F4
559B – Active Directory survey.
• Connects to the Active Directory Global Catalog (“GC:”) using ADSI
• Enumerates all objects in AD
• Presents every entry in a human-readable format
580C - Collects system and network information.
• Retrieves the domain controller name
• Enumerates all users and groups in the domain
• Collects Task Scheduler logs
• Collects disk information, removable device history
• Retrieves firewall policies
• Enumerates all named system objects
• Enumerates all system services
Active Directory enumeration routine.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details25
5B78 - Collects system information and utilities. One of the two exported functions has
a name “GetReport”.
• Enumerate running processes, extract tokens and SIDs, collect timing information
• Logon users using explicit credentials
• Impersonate users of running processes
• Build new 32-bit and 64-bit shellcode stubs using a hardcoded template
Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions exist.
Additional known variants: E8C7, EE6E.
5C66 – Encrypted file I/O, utilities
• File I/O operations: open/seek/read/write
• Manages compressed and encrypted temporary files

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details26
622B - Generate XML report about system using unique schema
• Computer name
• Windows directory
• Enumerates all logical drives
• Lists all files
• OS serial number
• Domain name
• Network adapter configuration: IP addresses, MAC, MTU, adapter list
6302 - Utilities. Has internal name “d3dx9_27.dll”. Executes timer-based events.
Additional known variants: FA84
669D – Utilities. Given a list of file names and directories, checks if they exist.
Additional known variants: 880B
XML tags used to generate the system report.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details27
6914 - Sniffer-based network attacks. Uses a legitimate WinPcap driver “npf.sys”. Detects
NBNS (NetBIOS protocol) requests of interest and sends its own responses:
• Responds to WPAD requests (“FHFAEBE” in NBNS packets)
• Sends responses to HTTP GET requests
The network filter is based on the BPF library. The payloads for the HTTP and WPAD
responses are provided externally.
6FAC - File API
• Get file size, attributes
• Securely delete a file
• Open/close/read/write file contents
Additional known variants: A7EE
7BDA – Collects system information
• Current state of AV and firewall protection using wscapi.dll API
• Detect if “sqlservr.exe” is running
• Computer name
• Workgroup info
• Domain controller name
• Network adapter configuration
• Time and time zone information
• CPU frequency
Additional known variants: EF2E
Fake HTTP response and related status messages.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details28
7C23 – Extracts metadata from documents and collects system information
• Computer name
• System volume serial
• Complete file API as in 6FAC
Searches for documents and archives and implements routines to extract all valuable
information from them:
• E-mail messages: eml, msg
• Image files: jpg, jpe, jpeg, tif, tiff, bmp, png
• Multimedia files: wmv, avi, mpeg, mpg, m4a, mp4, mkv, wav, aac, ac3, dv, flac,
flv, h264, mov, 3gp, 3g2, mj2, mp3, mpegts, ogg, asf. These are re-encoded with
libffmpeg.
• Contents from PDF documents
• Microsoft Office: doc, docx, xlsx, pptx. Dedicated routines are called accordingly:
“OfficeRipDoc”, “OfficeRipDocx”, “OfficeRipXlsx”, “OfficeRipPptx”. PPT slides are
extracted and converted to a HTML digest of the presentation.
• Archives: gz, gzip, gzX3, zip, rar
Creates temporary files with extension “.fg4”.
Additional known variants: EB18, C091
Part of the list of file extensions of interest and corresponding status messages.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details29
8172 - Sniffer-based network attacks. Performs NBNS (NetBIOS protocol) name
resolution spoofing for:
• WPAD requests
• Names starting with “SHR”
• Names starting with “3142” (log only)
Additional feature: the module can build new shellcode blobs from hardcoded templates.
81B7 – Driver management
• Write driver to disk
• Start/stop driver
• Safely remove the driver’s file from disk
Additional known variants: C1B9
Status messages related to the attack.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details30
8446 - Oracle DB and ADOdb client.
• Uses “oci.dll” API to access Oracle databases
• Extracts all available information from the database
• Also connects to ADOdb providers
8912 – Encrypted file manipulation and collects system information
• Shared file mapping communication
• Write encrypted data to files
• Enumerate windows
• Enumerate network shares and local disks
• Retrieve USB device history
• Collect network routing table
Known mutex and mapping names:
• Global{DD0FF599-FA1B-4DED-AC70-C0451F4B98F0} Global{B12F87CA-1EBA-
4365-B90C-E2A1D8911CA9},
• Global{B03A79AD-BA3A-4BF1-9A59-A9A1C57A3034} Global{6D2104E6-7310-
4A65-9EDD-F06E91747790},
• Global{DD0FF599-FA1B-4DED-AC70-C0451F4B98F0} Global{B12F87CA-1EBA-
4365-B90C-E2A1D8911CA9}
SQL queries and related data.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details31
Additional known variants: D19F, D2EE
9224 – Run console applications. Creates processes using desktop “Default”, attaches to
its console and redirects its I/O to named pipes.
92DB - Modified cmd.exe shell.
9F0D (64-bit), D1A3(32-bit) – legitimate signed driver NPF.SYS (WinPcap) distributed
inside the VFS along with the plugins. It is used for sniffer-based network attacks.
A4B0 – Network survey
• Uses DHCP Server Management API (DHCPSAPI.DLL) to enumerate all DHCP server’s
clients
• Queries all known DHCP sub-networks
• Searches for machines that have ports UDP 1434 or 137 open
• Enumerates all network servers
• Enumerates network shares
• Tries to connect to remote registries to enumerate all users in HKEY_USERS, converts
them to SIDs
B6C1 - WNet API. Provides wrappers for the WnetAddConnection2 and WNetOpenEnum
functions.
Additional known variants: BC4A
Several CMD commands processed by the shell.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details32
C25B – Sniffer based network attacks. Implements a fake SMB server to trick other
machines to authenticate with NTLM.
• Implements basic SMB v1 commands
• Pretends to have IPC$ and A: shares
• Accepts user authentication requests
• Also handles HTTP “GET /” requests
SMB commands handled by the module
NTLM challenge and SMB server data

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details33
ED92 – File system survey
• Enumerates all local drives and connected network shares
• Lists files
EF97 – Filesystem utilities
• Enumerate files
• Create and remove directories
• Copy/move/delete files and directories
• Extract version information from files
• Calculate file hashes
Additional known variants: F71E
Persistence mechanism
The Duqu 2.0 malware platform was designed in a way that survives almost exclusively
in memory of the infected systems, without need for persistence. To achieve this, the
attackers infect servers with high uptime and then re-infect any machines in the domain
that get disinfected by reboots. Surviving exclusively in memory while running kernel
level code through exploits is a testimony to the technical prowess of the group. In
essence, the attackers were confident enough they can survive within an entire network
of compromised computers without relying on any persistence mechanism at all.
The reason why there is no persistence with Duqu 2.0 is probably because the attackers
wanted to stay under the radar as much as possible. Most modern anti-APT technologies
can pinpoint anomalies on the disk, such as rare drivers, unsigned programs or
maliciously-acting programs. Additionally, a system where the malware survives reboot
can be imaged and then analyzed thoroughly at a later time. With Duqu 2.0, forensic
analysis of infected systems is extremely difficult – one needs to grab memory snapshots
of infected machines and then identify the infection in memory.
However, this mechanism has one weakness; in case of a massive power failure, all
computers will reboot and the malware will be eradicated. To get around this problem,
the attackers have another solution – they deploy drivers to a small number of
computers, with direct Internet connectivity. These drivers can tunnel traffic from the
outside into the network, allowing the attackers to access remote desktop sessions or
to connect to servers inside the domain by using previously acquired credentials. Using
these credentials, they can re-deploy the entire platform following a massive power loss.
Command and control mechanisms
Duqu 2.0 uses a sophisticated and highly flexible command-and-control mechanism that
builds on top of the 2011 variant, with new features that appear to have been inspired
by other top class malware such as Regin. This includes the usage of network pipes and
mailslots, raw filtering of network traffic and masking CC traffic inside image files.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details34
Inside a Windows LAN, newly infected clients may not have a CC hardcoded in their
installation MSI packages. Without a CC, they are in “dormant” state and can be
activated by the attackers over SMB network pipes with a special TCP/IP packet that
contains the magic string “tttttttttttttttt”. If a CC is included in the configuration part of
the MSI file, this can be either a local IP address, which serves as a bouncing point or an
external IP address. As a general strategy for infection, the attackers identify servers with
high uptime and set them as intermediary CC points. Hence, an infected machine can
jump between several internal servers in the LAN before reaching out to the Internet.
To connect the the CC servers, both 2011 and 2014/2015 versions of Duqu can hide the
traffic as encrypted data appended to a harmless image file. The 2011 version used a
JPEG file for this; the new version can use either a GIF file or a JPEG file. Here’s how
these image files look like:
Another modification to the 2014/2015 variants is the addition of multiple user agent
strings for the HTTP communication. The 2011 used the following user agent string:
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100824
Firefox/3.6.9 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
The new variants will randomly select an user agent string from a table of 53 different
possible ones.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details35
Another unusual CC mechanism relies on driver files that are used to tunnel the CC
communications and attacker’s RDP/SMB activity into the network. The attackers deploy
such translation drivers on servers with direct Internet connectivity. Through a knocking
mechanism, the attackers can activate the translation mechanism for their IPs and tunnel
their traffic directly into the LAN. Outside the LAN, the traffic can be masked over port
443; inside the LAN, it can be either direct SMB/RDP or it can be further translated over
fake TCP/IP packets to IP 8.8.8.8.
During our investigation, we observed several such drivers. A description can be found
below.
The “portserv.sys” driver analysis
MD5: 2751e4b50a08eb11a84d03f8eb580a4e
Size: 14336
Compiled: Sat Feb 11 21:55:30 2006 (fake timestamp)
Internal name: termport.sys
Type: Win32 device driver (a 64 bit version is known as well)

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details36
This is a malicious NDIS filter driver designed to perform manipulation of TCP/IP packets
to allow the attacker to access internal servers in the victim’s infrastructure.
Upon startup, the filter driver hooks into the NDIS stack and starts processing TCP/IP
packets.
To leverage the driver, the attacker first sends a special TCP/IP packet with the string
“romanian.antihacker” to any of the hardcoded IPs belonging to infected server. In
general, such servers are computers with direct Internet connectivity, such as a
webserver or a proxy. The driver sees the packet, recognizes the magic string “romanian.
antihacker” and saves the attacker’s IP for later use.
When a packet comes from the attacker’s IP (saved before), the following logic applies:
• Packet to server 1’s IP on port 443, is redirected on port 445 (Samba/Windows file
system)
• Packet from server 1’s IP from port 445, is redirected to attacker’s IP port 443
• Packet to server 2’s IP on port 443 is redirected on port 3389 (Remote Desktop)
• Packet from server 2’s IP from port 3389 is redirected to attacker’s IP port 443
This effectively allows the attackers to tunnel SMB (remote file system access) and
Remote Desktop into these two servers while making it look like SSL traffic (port 443).
These drivers allow the Duqu attackers to easily access servers inside the LAN from
remote, including tunneling RDP sessions over Port 443 (normally SSL). It also gives them
a persistence mechanism that allows them to return even if all the infected machines
with the malware in memory are rebooted. The attackers can simply use existing
credentials to log back into any of the servers that the driver is serving and can re-
initialize the backdoors from there.
Magic string used for knocking inside the driver.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details37
Similarities between
Duqu and Duqu 2.0
The 2014/2015 Duqu 2.0 is a greatly enhanced version of the 2011 Duqu malware
discovered by 7
CrySyS Lab. It includes many new ideas from modern malware, such as
Regin, but also lateral movement strategies and harvesting capabilities which surpasses
commonly seen malware from other APT attacks.
Side by side:
2011 Duqu 2014/2015 Duqu 2.0
Number of victims: 50 (estimated) 100 (estimated)
Persistence mechanism: Yes No
Loader: SYS driver MSI file
Zero-days used: Yes Yes
Main storage: PNF (custom) files MSI files
CC mechanism: HTTP/HTTPS, network pipes HTTP/HTTPS, network pipes
Known plugins: 6 100
There are many similarities in the code that leads us to conclusion that Duqu 2.0 was
built on top of the original source code of Duqu. Those interested can read below for a
technical description of these similarities.
7 https://www.crysys.hu/publications/files/bencsathPBF11duqu.pdf

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details38
One of the “trademark” features unique to the original Duqu was the set of functions that
provide logging facilities. Unlike many other APTs, Duqu logs almost every important step
of its activity but does it in a special way: there are no readable strings written to the log.
Instead, a series of unique numbers identify every state, error, or message in the log.
Comparing the functions that generate every log entry in Duqu and Duqu 2.0, we can
conclude that they are almost identical:
The first generation of Duqu was also written in a very rare and unique manner. It was
compiled with Visual Studio and while parts of it were definitely written in C++, the
majority of its classes were not natively generated by the C++ compiler. After analyzing
all the possible variants, we conclude that these classes were written in OO-C, the
objective variant of the C language, and then somehow converted into a compilable C/
C++ source. All these classes had a very specific feature: the virtual function table of
every instance was filled “by hand” in its constructor. Interestingly, this is no longer the
case for Duqu 2.0. The authors upgraded their compiler from Visual Studio 2008 (used in
2011) to Visual Studio 2013 and now use classes that look much more like native C++
ones:
On the left: the “hand-made” or “compiler-assisted” classed of OO-C in Duqu.
On the right: the same class in Duqu 2.0 has a native Vtable similar to native C++ one,
however the offset of the pointer is not zero.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details39
The more concrete evidence of similarity can be found if we look for functions that
actually use the logging facilities. The authors kept using the same unique numbers for
identification of internal states, errors and function results. Networking functions are
good candidates for comparison:
Implementation of the same networking function in Duqu and Duqu 2.0. Note the same unique numbers
(in red rectangles) PUSHed as parameters to the logging function.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details40
The code of the orchestrator evolved in many aspects since 2011. One of the notable
differences is a huge list of HTTP User-Agent strings that are now used instead of a single
hard-coded one:
Another networking routine: after calling recv() to receive data from network, Duqu logs the results and
possible network errors (obtained via WSAGetLastError()). Unique numbers in red rectangles are used to
identify the current state of the networking routine.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details41
The authors also modified the “magic” two-byte value that identifies encrypted network
traffic: “SH” was replaced with a more neutral and harder to trace “WW”:
Both Duqu and Duqu 2.0 use special structures to identify the interfaces of their plugins.
The orchestrator also has one for the “core” plugin that is compiled in its code. The
newer version has a slightly bigger table, hence more functions, and a different notation
for describing the plugin features. Special strings (i.e. “A888A8@”) describe each
function’s signature. The older Duqu had contained similar strings in binary (unreadable)
form.
Code that verifies the “magic” value in network traffic.
The chars are swapped due to little-endianness of data in x86/64 architectures.
Data structure that describes the “core” plugin of Duqu and two different version of Duqu 2.0.
Note the same constants and similar functions.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details42
The Duqu CC code makes use of small image files to hide its communications over
unencrypted channels, i.e. HTTP. The original Duqu used a JPEG file, and known versions
of Duqu 2.0 use a similar JPEG file as well as a new, larger GIF file. Also, the layout of the
data section did not change much: the image data is preceded by short AES encryption
keys (string “sh123456” in Duqu, two binary DWORDs in Duqu 2.0) followed by the LZO
version string “2.03”.
The large number of similarities between the Duqu 2011 code and the new Duqu 2.0
samples indicates that the new code represents a new iteration of the malware platform.
The new version could not have been built without access to the 2011 Duqu source
code. Hence, we conclude that the authors are the same or working together.
Victims of Duqu 2.0
Victims of Duqu 2.0 were found in several places, including western countries, the
Middle East and Asia. The actor appears to compromise both final and utilitarian targets,
which allow them to improve their cyber capabilities.
Most of the final targets appear to be similar to their 2011 goals – which is to spy on
Iran’s nuclear program. Some of the new 2014-2015 infections are linked to the P5+1
events and venues related to the negotiations with Iran about a nuclear deal. The threat
actor behind Duqu appears to have launched attacks at the venues for some of these
high level talks. In addition to the P5+1 events, the Duqu 2.0 group has launched a similar
attack in relation to the 8
70th anniversary event of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
8 http://70.auschwitz.org/index.php?lang=en
Image data used for hiding CC communication in them: JPEG in Duqu, similar JPEG in Duqu Bet and
GIF in a different version of Duqu Bet. Note the preceding LZO version string “2.03” and encryption keys.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details43
The other type of targets for the new attacks are what we call “utilitarian” targets. These
are companies that the attackers compromise to improve their cyber capabilities.
For instance, in 2011, the attackers compromised a certificate authority in Hungary;
obviously, this would allow them to generate digital certificates, which can be further
used to sign malware samples. The same pattern can be seen with the Duqu 2.0
infections. Some of the companies infected with Duqu 2.0 operate in the sector of
Industrial Control Systems as well as industrial computers.
Attribution
As usual, attribution of cyberattacks over the Internet is a difficult task. In the case of
Duqu, the attackers use multiple proxies and jumping points to mask their connections.
This makes tracking an extremely complex problem.
Additionally, the attackers have tried to include several false flags throughout the code,
designed to send researchers in the wrong direction. For instance, one of the drivers
contains the string “ugly.gorilla”, which obviously refers to 9
Wang Dong, a Chinese
hacker believed to be associated with the APT1/Comment Crew. The usage of the
Camellia cypher in the MSI VFSes, previously seen in APT1-associated Poison Ivy samples
is another false flag planted by the attackers to make researchers believe they are dealing
with APT1 related malware. The “romanian.antihacker” string used in the “portserv.sys”
driver is probably designed to mimic “w00tw00t.at.blackhats.romanian.anti-sec” requests
that are often seen in server logs or simply point to an alleged Romanian origin of the
attack. The usage of rare compression algorithms can also deceptive. For instance, the
LZJB algorithm used in some of the samples is rarely seen in malware samples; it has
been used by MiniDuke which we reported in early 2013.
Nevertheless, such false flags are relatively easy to spot, especially when the attacker is
extremely careful not to make any other mistakes.
During our 2011 analysis, we noticed that the logs collected from some of the proxies
indicated the attackers appear to work less on Fridays and didn’t appear to work at all on
Saturdays, with their regular work week starting on Sunday. They also compiled binaries
on January 1st, indicating it was probably a normal work day for them. The compilation
timestamps in the binaries seemed to suggest a time zone of GMT+2 or GMT+3. Finally,
their attacks would normally occur on Wednesdays, which is why we originally called
them the “Wednesday Gang”. While the 2014 attack against Kaspersky Lab also took
place on a Wednesday, the gang made huge OPSEC improvements compared to their
older 2011 operations, including faking all the timestamps in PE files, removing the debug
paths and internal module names for all plugins.
The 2014 Duqu 2.0 binaries contain several strings in almost perfect English but one of
them has a minor mistake indicating the involvement of non-native speakers. The usage
of “Excceeded” instead of “Exceeded” in the file-harvesting module of Duqu 2.0 is the
only language mistake we observed.
9 http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/wang-dong/view

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details44
Most interesting, one of the victims appear to have been infected both by the Equation
Group and by the Duqu group at the same time; this suggests the two entities are
different and competing with each other to obtain information from this victim.
Conclusions
During the 2011 Duqu attacks, we concluded that its main purpose could have been to
spy on Iran’s nuclear program. Some of the victims appear to have been “utilitary”, such
as one certificate authority in Hungary, which was compromised by Duqu and ultimately
that led to its discovery. The group behind Duqu hacks these “utilitary” victims in order to
gain certain technical abilities such as signing their malware with trusted certificates or to
serve as platforms for further attacks.
The 2014/2015 Duqu 2.0 appears to be a massive improvement over the older “Tilded”
platform, although the main orchestrator and CC core remains largely unchanged. Back
in 2011 we pointed out to the usage of 10
Object Oriented C as an unusual programming
technique. The 2014 version maintains the same core, although some new objects in
C++ have been added. The compiler used in the 2014 is newer and it results in different
code optimizations. Nevertheless, the core remains the same in functionality and it is
our belief it could not have been created by anyone without access to the original Duqu
source code. Since these have never been made public and considering the main interest
appears to have remained the same, we conclude the attackers behind Duqu and Duqu
2.0 are the same.
The targeting of Kaspersky Lab represents a huge step for the attackers and an indicator
of how quick the cyber-arms race is escalating. Back in 2011 and 2013 respectively, 11
RSA
and 12
Bit9, were hacked by Chinese-language APT groups, however, such incidents
were considered rare. In general, an attacker risks a lot targeting a security company
– because they can get caught and exposed. The exact reason why Kaspersky Lab
was targeted is still not clear – although the attackers did seem to focus on obtaining
information about Kaspersky’s future technologies, Secure OS, anti-APT solutions, KSN
and APT research.
10 https://securelist.com/blog/research/32354/the-mystery-of-duqu-framework-solved-7/
11 https://blogs.rsa.com/anatomy-of-an-attack/
12 https://blog.bit9.com/2013/02/08/bit9-and-our-customers-security/
Misspelling of the word “Exceeded” in Duqu 2.0.

The Duqu 2.0
Technical Details45
From a threat actor point of view, the decision to target a world-class security company
must be quite difficult. On one hand, it almost surely means the attack will be exposed –
it’s very unlikely that the attack will go unnoticed. So the targeting of security companies
indicates that either they are very confident they won’t get caught, or perhaps they don’t
care much if they are discovered and exposed. By targeting Kaspersky Lab, the Duqu
attackers have probably taken a huge bet hoping they’d remain undiscovered; and lost.
For a security company, one of the most difficult things is to admit falling victim to a
malware attack. At Kaspersky Lab, we strongly believe in transparency, which is why
we are publishing the information herein. For us, the security of our users remains the
most important thing – and we will continue to work hard to maintain your trust and
confidence.
References
1. Duqu: A Stuxnet-like malware found in the wild https://www.crysys.hu/publications/
files/bencsathPBF11duqu.pdf
2. Duqu: The Precursor to the next Stuxnet http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/
enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_duqu_the_precursor_to_the_
next_stuxnet.pdf
3. The Mystery of Duqu: Part One https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/31177/the-
mystery-of-duqu-part-one-5/
4. The Mystery of Duqu: Part Two https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/31445/the-
mystery-of-duqu-part-two-23/
5. The Mystery of Duqu: Part Three https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/31486/the-
mystery-of-duqu-part-three-9/
6. The Mystery of Duqu: Part Five https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/31208/the-
mystery-of-duqu-part-five-6/
7. The Mystery of Duqu: Part Six (The Command and Control Servers) https://securelist.
com/blog/incidents/31863/the-mystery-of-duqu-part-six-the-command-and-
control-servers-36/
8. The Mystery of Duqu: Part Ten https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/32668/the-
mystery-of-duqu-part-ten-18/
9. The Mystery of Duqu Framework Solved https://securelist.com/blog/research/32354/
the-mystery-of-duqu-framework-solved-7/
10. The Duqu Saga Continues https://securelist.com/blog/incidents/31442/the-duqu-
saga-continues-enter-mr-b-jason-and-tvs-dexter-22/

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