Skip to the content.

RCO: Process Migration

Process migration version unavailable

Target OS Demo
Linux process_migration_linux
Windows process_migration_windows

How it works

Windows process migration works by obtaining a handle to the target process and writing shellcode to it. A remote thread is then created; the starting point of this thread is the newly written shellcode.

Linux process migration works slightly differently. After temporarily pausing the target process, RCO writes shellcode over the process’s instruction pointer. This can cause issues (the most likely of which is crashing) for the victim machine.

Using it

  1. [Not shown in demo] Generate shellcode for the desired end result (for example, use msfvenom to generate a reverse TCP shell shellcode for the target operating system)
  2. [Not shown in demo] Open the config file and change the shellcode to the shellcode generated in step 1
  3. [Optional - shown in the xor_params demo] Encrypt the shellcode and target process using xor_params and update the encrypted shellcode value in the config file
  4. [Not shown in demo] Compile the executable, only including --features xor if you did step 3
    1. Build for Linux target
      cargo build -p process_migration [antisand][,][antistring][,][xor]] --release
      
    2. Build for Windows target
      cargo build --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu -p process_migration [antisand][,][antistring][,][xor]] --release
      
  5. Start a netcat listener on the attacking machine on the same port you configured the shellcode to connect to in step 1
    nc -nlvp 4444
    
  6. Execute the payload on the victim machine
  7. Return to the listener and enter desired commands for the victim machine to run

Detection rates

Target OS Features Detections Screenshot
Linux None 6 / 40 process_migration_linux
Linux xor 0 / 40 process_migration_linux_xor
Windows None 11 / 40 process_migration_windows
Windows antisand 11 / 40 process_migration_windows_antisand
Windows antisand,antistring 11 / 40 process_migration_windows_antistring
Windows antistring 11 / 40 process_migration_windows_antistring
Windows antistring,xor 1 / 40 process_migration_windows_antistring_xor
Windows xor 1 / 40 process_migration_windows_xor
Windows antisand,xor 0 / 40 process_migration_windows_antisand_xor
Windows antisand,antistring,xor 0 / 40 process_migration_windows_antisand_antistring_xor