Recently, 2.27 million computers running Windows were infected with malware signed with a stolen certificate from the creators of a popular app called CCleaner, and inserted into its software update mechanism. Fortunately, signed malware is now simple to detect with osquery thanks to a pull request submitted by our colleague Alessandro Gario that adds Windows executable code signature verification (also known as Authenticode). This post explains the importance of code signatures in incident response, and demonstrates a use case for this new osquery feature by using it to detect the recent CCleaner malware. If you are unfamiliar with osquery, take a moment to read our previous blog post in which we explain why we are osquery evangelists, and how we extended it to run on the Windows platform. Part of osquery’s appeal is its flexibility and open-source model – if there’s another feature you need built, let us know! Code-signed malware Code signing was intended to be an effective deterrent against maliciously modified executables, and to allow a user (or platform owner) to choose whether to run executables from untrusted sources. Unfortunately, on general-purpose computing platforms like Windows, third-party software vendors are individually responsible for protecting thei
FEATURES
ALTERNATIVES
A project that uses Athena and EventBridge to investigate API activity and notify of actions for incident response and misconfiguration detection.
Darktrace is a cyber security solution that uses AI to detect and prevent cyber attacks in real-time.
StackStorm is an open-source automation platform that connects and automates DevOps workflows and integrates with existing infrastructure.
A DFIR Playbook Spec based on YAML for collaborative incident response processes.
Automate security incident handling and facilitate real-time activities of incident handlers.
Incident response and digital forensics tool for transforming data sources and logs into graphs.
A mature SIEM environment is critical for successful SOAR implementation.
PINNED

Mandos Brief Newsletter
A weekly newsletter providing cybersecurity leadership insights, industry updates, and strategic guidance for security professionals advancing to management positions.

OSINTLeak
OSINTLeak is a tool for discovering and analyzing leaked sensitive information across various online sources to identify potential security risks.

ImmuniWeb® Discovery
ImmuniWeb Discovery is an attack surface management platform that continuously monitors an organization's external digital assets for security vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and threats across domains, applications, cloud resources, and the dark web.

Checkmarx SCA
A software composition analysis tool that identifies vulnerabilities, malicious code, and license risks in open source dependencies throughout the software development lifecycle.

Orca Security
A cloud-native application protection platform that provides agentless security monitoring, vulnerability management, and compliance capabilities across multi-cloud environments.

DryRun
A GitHub application that performs automated security code reviews by analyzing contextual security aspects of code changes during pull requests.