VxCage

VxCage is a WSGI Python application for managing a malware samples repository with a REST API interface.

The successor of VxCage is Viper and is also available on github

Requirements

In order to install VxCage you need to have Python (2.7) installed. Following are the required libraries.

• bottle.py -- pip install bottle
• sqlalchemy -- pip install sqlalchemy

If you want to enable the fuzzy hash, you need to install ssdeep and the Python bindings, pydeep.

VxCage also requires any database engine from the ones supported. Depending to which one you pick, you'll need the required Python API. For example, in the case of MySQL you'll also need MySQLdb (pip install mysqldb).

If you plan to run VxCage with Apache, you'll need to have mod_wsgi installed. On Ubuntu/Debian systems apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi.

Installation

First thing first, extract VxCage to your selected location and open api.conf and configure the path to the local folder you want to use as a storage. You also need to configure the connection string for your database. For example:

MySQL:

mysql://user:pass@host/database

SQLite:

sqlite:///database.db

PostgreSQL:

postgresql://user:pass@host/database

Refer to SQLAlchemy's documentation for additional details.

Now proceeds installing Apache and required modes:

# apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi

Enable the mod:

# a2enmod wsgi

If you want to enable SSL, you need to generate a certificate with OpenSSL or buy one from a certified authority. You can also use the make-ssl-cert utility as following:

# make-ssl-cert /usr/share/ssl-cert/ssleay.cnf /path/to/apache.pem

Now create a virtual host for the domain you want to host the application on. We'll enable WSGI, SSL and a basic authentication. A valid template is the following:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName yourwebsite.tld

    WSGIDaemonProcess yourapp user=www-data group=www-data processes=1 threads=5
    WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/app.wsgi

    <Directory /path/to/app.wsgi>
        WSGIProcessGroup yourgroup
        WSGIApplicationGroup %{GLOBAL}
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    <Location />
        AuthType Basic
        AuthName "Authentication Required"
        AuthUserFile "/path/to/users"
        Require valid-user
    </Location>

    SSLEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile /path/to/apache.pem

    ErrorLog /path/to/error.log
    LogLevel warn
    CustomLog /path/to/access.log combined
    ServerSignature Off
</VirtualHost>

Now add your user:

# htpasswd -c /path/to/users username

You should be ready to go. Make sure to restart Apache afterwards:

# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

For testing purposes, you can also run it with the Bottle.py server just doing:

$ python api.py

Usage

You can interact with your repository with the provided REST API.

Submit a sample:

$ curl -F file=@sample.exe -F tags="tag1 tag2" http://yourdomain.tld/malware/add

Retrieve a sample:

$ curl http://yourdomain.tld/malware/get/<sha256> > sample.exe

Find a sample by MD5:

$ curl -F md5=<md5> http://yourdomain.tld/malware/find

Find a sample by SHA-256:

$ curl -F sha256=<sha256> http://yourdomain.tld/malware/find

Find a sample by Ssdeep (can also search for a substring of the ssdeep hash):

$ curl -F ssdeep=<pattern> http://yourdomain.tld/malware/find

Find a sample by Tag:

$ curl -F tag=<tag> http://yourdomain.tld/malware/find

List existing tags:

$ curl http://yourdomain.tld/tags/list

In case you added a basic authentication, you will need to add --basic -u "user:pass". In case you added SSL support with a generated certificate, you will need to add --insecure and obviously make the requests to https://yourdomain.tld.

Console

You can also easily interact with your VxCage server using the provided console interface. In order to run it, you'll need the following dependencies:

• requests -- pip install requests
• prettytable -- pip install prettytable
• progressbar -- pip install progressbar

This is the help message:

usage: vxcage.py [-h] [-H HOST] [-p PORT] [-s] [-a]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -H HOST, --host HOST  Host of VxCage server
  -p PORT, --port PORT  Port of VxCage server
  -s, --ssl             Enable if the server is running over SSL
  -a, --auth            Enable if the server is prompting an HTTP
                        authentication

As you can see, you can specify the host, the port and enable SSL and HTTP authentication. For example, you can launch it simply with:

$ python vxcage.py --host yourserver.com --port 443 --ssl --auth

You will be prompted with:

  `o   O o   O .oOo  .oOoO' .oOoO .oOo. 
   O   o  OoO  O     O   o  o   O OooO' 
   o  O   o o  o     o   O  O   o O     
   `o'   O   O `OoO' `OoO'o `OoOo `OoO' 
                                O       
                             OoO'  by nex

Username: nex
Password: 
vxcage> 

Now you can start typing commands, you can start with:

vxcage> help
Available commands:
  help        Show this help
  tags        Retrieve list of tags
  find        Find a file by md5, sha256, ssdeep, tag or date
  get         Retrieve a file by sha256
  add         Upload a file to the server

You can retrieve the list of available tags:

vxcage> tags
+------------------------+
| tag                    |
+------------------------+
| banker                 |
| bot                    |
| carberp                |
| citadel                |
| zeus                   |
+------------------------+
Total: 5

You can search for all samples matching a specific tag:

vxcage> find tag carberp
+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-----------+
| md5                              | sha256                                                           | file_name    | file_type                                         | file_size |
+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-----------+
| 719354b4b7b182b30e1de8ce7b417d2f | 689a35928f71848fab346b50811c6c0aab95da01b9293c60d74c7be1357dc029 | carberp1.exe | PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows | 132096    |
| 63d8fd55ebe6e2fa6cc9523df942a9a5 | a6d77a5ba2b5b46a0ad85fe7f7f01063fe7267344c0cecec47985cd1e46fa7a4 | carberp2.exe | PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows | 192512    |
| ccf43cdc957d09ea2c60c6f57e4600f0 | b998233b85af152596f5087e64c2cadb1466e4f6da62f416ac3126f87c364276 | carberp3.exe | PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows | 186880    |
+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-----------+
Total: 3

You can view details on a specific sample:

vxcage> find md5 719354b4b7b182b30e1de8ce7b417d2f
sha1: 091fcf7378bfc4baec61bc5708e9a64128c5c7e4
tags: banker,carberp
file_type: PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386, for MS Windows
file_name: carberp1.exe
created_at: 2012-12-25 00:37:16
file_size: 132096
crc32: 05AF53DC
ssdeep: 3072:fQAsBL+tnecg1OS+x/+SSQSBX8MxaQhJwox:fQAsBoecg1UM3c
sha256: 689a35928f71848fab346b50811c6c0aab95da01b9293c60d74c7be1357dc029
sha512: 844e0010e23571e2bc6a44405a012bca4f01955348db26320d6a95e54e6afc85a81bef574ee65de9d67cdf6e2cf80fd4d1b2c559902596943b1e4ebeb5641650
id: 41
md5: 719354b4b7b182b30e1de8ce7b417d2f

You can download the sample:

vxcage> get 689a35928f71848fab346b50811c6c0aab95da01b9293c60d74c7be1357dc029 /tmp
Download: 100% |:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::| Time: 00:00:00 223.63 K/s
File downloaded at path: /tmp/689a35928f71848fab346b50811c6c0aab95da01b9293c60d74c7be1357dc029

Or upload a new one:

vxcage> add /tmp/malware.exe windows,trojan,something
File uploaded successfully

Copying

VxCage is licensed under BSD 2-Clause and is copyrighted to Claudio Guarnieri.

Contacts

Twitter: @botherder