Investigating WSL Endpoints

This document discusses investigating Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) endpoints from a digital forensics and incident response perspective. It describes what WSL 2 is and the implications for forensic analysts, then details several experiments conducted during a forensic examination of a WSL endpoint, including establishing persistence using Bashrc and systemd, executing reverse shells and downloading files, and lateral movement of files.

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Investigating WSL Endpoints

Uploaded by

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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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Investigating WSL Endpoints

Asif Matadar
@d1r4c

OSDFCon 2020
#whoami

• Director of Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) at Tanium

• Seasoned Incident Response professional with over a decade working in InfoSec and
specifically leading high-profile cases around the world, such as advanced targeted attacks,
nation-state attacks, and data breaches, to name a few

• Public speaker at industry recognised conferences around the world:

• DFRWS USA 2020

• WSLConf (U.S.) 2020
• OSDFCon (U.S.) 2019
• OSDFCon (U.S.) 2018
• IMF (Germany) 2018
• OSDFCon (U.S.) 2017
• BSidesNOLA (U.S.) 2017
• BSidesMCR (U.K.) 2015

• Research focus on memory analysis and automation, *nix-based forensics, cloud forensics,
and triage analysis

©2017 Tanium. All rights reserved. 2

Investigating WSL Endpoints

• Since the announcement of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) back in 2016, there has been
a lot of excitement to try and leverage WSL across workstations and servers a like by organisations
and those that work in the industry.

• What does that mean for someone who works as a Digital Forensics & Incident Response
professional?
• Well adversaries and malware authors have already started focussing their attention on WSL;
therefore, it is important to understand the underlying architecture changes that will allow one
to investigate a compromised Windows 10 or Windows Server 2019 in the not too distant
future.

• This talk will highlight the nuances to be aware of from a Digital Forensics & Incident Response
perspective and illustrate forensic artefacts of interest, which will consist of a forensic examination
on a WSL Endpoint to provide the audience an appreciation of what that entails and share insights
that will assist them when the time arises.

©2017 Tanium. All rights reserved. 3

Agenda

• What is WSL 2?

• What does that mean for Digital Forensics & Incident Response professionals?

• Forensic examination on a WSL Endpoint

• 11 experiments

©2017 Tanium. All rights reserved. 4

What is WSL2?
What is WSL 2?

• Full System Call Compatibility

• WSL 2 has its own customised kernel specifically for WSL 2
• Docker

• WSL 1 had a translation layer to interpret the system calls, that allows them to
work on the Windows NT kernel

• Faster than WSL 1

• Raw sockets

©2017 Tanium. All rights reserved. 6

What is WSL 2?

• New architecture for Windows Subsystem for Linux

• Developed in-house kernel from stable branch at kernel.org source from version 4.19 kernel

• Customised kernel specifically for WSL 2

• As it’s developed by Microsoft, updates to the kernel will be serviced by Windows Update

• Lightweight Utility VM
• Hyper-V hypervisor

©2017 Tanium. All rights reserved. 7

What does that mean for Digital
Forensics & Incident Response
professionals?
What does that mean for Digital Forensics & Incident Response
professionals?

• Full System Call Compatibility

• Lightweight Utility VM
• Hyper-V hypervisor
• Not a traditional Virtual Machine
• EXT4 Virtual Disk
• C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindow
s_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\ext4.vhdx

• Management of WSL
• wsl.exe (WSL 2)
• wslconfig (WSL 1)