Chromium’s sandboxed course of mannequin defends nicely from malicious net content material, however there are limits to how nicely the applying can shield itself from malware already on the pc. Cookies and different credentials stay a excessive worth goal for attackers, and we are attempting to deal with this ongoing menace in a number of methods, together with engaged on net requirements like
DBSC
that can assist disrupt the cookie theft trade since exfiltrating these cookies will now not have any worth.
The place it’s not potential to forestall the theft of credentials and cookies by malware, the following smartest thing is making the assault extra observable by antivirus, endpoint detection brokers, or enterprise directors with primary log evaluation instruments.
This weblog describes one set of indicators to be used by system directors or endpoint detection brokers that ought to reliably flag any entry to the browser’s protected knowledge from one other software on the system. By growing the probability of an assault being detected, this adjustments the calculus for these attackers who might need a robust need to stay stealthy, and would possibly trigger them to rethink finishing up a lot of these assaults towards our customers.
Background
Chromium based mostly browsers on Home windows use the DPAPI (Information Safety API) to safe native secrets and techniques akin to cookies, password and so on. towards theft. DPAPI safety is predicated on a key derived from the person’s login credential and is designed to guard towards unauthorized entry to secrets and techniques from different customers on the system, or when the system is powered off. As a result of the DPAPI secret is certain to the logged in person, it can’t shield towards native malware assaults — malware executing because the person or at a better privilege stage can simply name the identical APIs because the browser to acquire the DPAPI secret.
Since 2013, Chromium has been making use of the CRYPTPROTECT_AUDIT flag to DPAPI calls to request that an audit log be generated when decryption happens, in addition to tagging the info as being owned by the browser. As a result of all of Chromium’s encrypted knowledge storage is backed by a DPAPI-secured key, any software that needs to decrypt this knowledge, together with malware, ought to at all times reliably generate a clearly observable occasion log, which can be utilized to detect a lot of these assaults.
There are three fundamental steps concerned in benefiting from this log:
- Allow logging on the pc operating Google Chrome, or another Chromium based mostly browser.
- Export the occasion logs to your backend system.
- Create detection logic to detect theft.
This weblog will even present how the logging works in follow by testing it towards a python password stealer.
Step 1: Allow logging on the system
DPAPI occasions are logged into two locations within the system. Firstly, there’s the
4693 occasion that may be logged into the Safety Log. This occasion may be enabled by turning on “Audit DPAPI Exercise” and the steps to do that are described
right here, the coverage itself sits deep inside Safety Settings -> Superior Audit Coverage Configuration -> Detailed Monitoring.
Here’s what the 4693 occasion seems like:
<Occasion xmlns=”http://schemas&interval;microsoft&interval;com/win/2004/08/occasions/occasion”>
 <System>
 <Supplier Title=”Microsoft-Home windows-Safety-Auditing” Guid=”{&interval;&interval;&interval;}” />
 <EventID>4693</EventID>
 <Model>0</Model>
 <Degree>0</Degree>
 <Process>13314</Process>
 <Opcode>0</Opcode>
 <Key phrases>0x8020000000000000</Key phrases>
 <TimeCreated SystemTime=”2015-08-22T06:25:14&interval;589407700Z” />
 <EventRecordID>175809</EventRecordID>
 <Correlation />
 <Execution ProcessID=”520″ ThreadID=”1340″ />
 <Channel>Safety</Channel>
 <Laptop>DC01&interval;contoso&interval;native</Laptop>
 <Safety />
 </System>
 <EventData>
 <Information Title=”SubjectUserSid”>S-1-5-21-3457937927-2839227994-823803824-1104</Information>
 <Information Title=”SubjectUserName”>dadmin</Information>
 <Information Title=”SubjectDomainName”>CONTOSO</Information>
 <Information Title=”SubjectLogonId”>0x30d7c</Information>
 <Information Title=”MasterKeyId”>0445c766-75f0-4de7-82ad-d9d97aad59f6</Information>
 <Information Title=”RecoveryReason”>0x5c005c</Information>
 <Information Title=”RecoveryServer”>DC01&interval;contoso&interval;native</Information>
 <Information Title=”RecoveryKeyId” />
 <Information Title=”FailureId”>0x380000</Information>
 </EventData>
</Occasion>
The problem with the 4693 occasion is that whereas it’s generated if there’s DPAPI exercise on the system, it sadly doesn’t comprise details about which course of was performing the DPAPI exercise, nor does it comprise details about which specific secret is being accessed. It’s because the
Execution ProcessID
area within the occasion will at all times be the method id of lsass.exe as a result of it’s this course of that manages the encryption keys for the system, and there’s no entry for the outline of the info.
It was for that reason that, in latest variations of Home windows a brand new occasion sort was added to assist establish the method making the DPAPI name instantly. This occasion was added to the
Microsoft-Home windows-Crypto-DPAPI
stream which manifests within the Occasion Log within the Purposes and Providers Logs > Microsoft > Home windows > Crypto-DPAPI a part of the Occasion Viewer tree.
The brand new occasion is known as
DPAPIDefInformationEvent
and has id 16385, however sadly is barely emitted to the Debug channel and by default this isn’t persevered to an Occasion Log, until Debug channel logging is enabled. This may be achieved by enabling it instantly in powershell:
&greenback;log = `
 New-Object System&interval;Diagnostics&interval;Eventing&interval;Reader&interval;EventLogConfiguration `
 Microsoft-Home windows-Crypto-DPAPI/Debug
&greenback;log&interval;IsEnabled = &greenback;True
&greenback;log&interval;SaveChanges()

As soon as this log is enabled then you must begin to see 16385 occasions generated, and these will comprise the actual course of ids of purposes performing DPAPI operations. Observe that 16385 occasions are emitted by the working system even for knowledge not flagged with CRYPTPROTECT_AUDIT, however to establish the info as owned by the browser, the info description is crucial. 16385 occasions are described later.
Additionally, you will wish to allow
Audit Course of Creation so as to have the ability to know a present mapping of course of ids to course of names — extra particulars on that later. You would possibly wish to additionally contemplate enabling logging of
full command strains.
Step 2: Gather the occasions
The occasions you wish to accumulate are:
- From Safety log:
- 4688: “A brand new course of was created.”
- From Microsoft-Home windows-Crypto-DPAPI/Debug log: (enabled above)
- 16385: “DPAPIDefInformationEvent”
These needs to be collected from all workstations, and persevered into your enterprise logging system for evaluation.
Step 3: Write detection logic to detect theft.
With these two occasions is it now potential to detect when an unauthorized software calls into DPAPI to try to decrypt browser secrets and techniques.
The final method is to generate a map of course of ids to energetic processes utilizing the 4688 occasions, then each time a 16385 occasion is generated, it’s potential to establish the at the moment operating course of, and alert if the method doesn’t match a certified software akin to Google Chrome. You would possibly discover your enterprise logging software program can already preserve monitor of which course of ids map to which course of names, so be at liberty to only use that current performance.
Let’s dive deeper into the occasions.
A 4688 occasion seems like this – e.g. right here is Chrome browser launching from explorer:
<Occasion xmlns=”http://schemas&interval;microsoft&interval;com/win/2004/08/occasions/occasion”>
 <System>
 <Supplier Title=”Microsoft-Home windows-Safety-Auditing” Guid=”{…}” />
 <EventID>4688</EventID>
 <Model>2</Model>
 <Degree>0</Degree>
 <Process>13312</Process>
 <Opcode>0</Opcode>
 <Key phrases>0x8020000000000000</Key phrases>
 <TimeCreated SystemTime=”2024-03-28T20:06:41&interval;9254105Z” />
 <EventRecordID>78258343</EventRecordID>
 <Correlation />
 <Execution ProcessID=”4″ ThreadID=”54256″ />
 <Channel>Safety</Channel>
 <Laptop>WIN-GG82ULGC9GO&interval;contoso&interval;native</Laptop>
 <Safety />
 </System>
 <EventData>
 <Information Title=”SubjectUserSid”>S-1-5-18</Information>
 <Information Title=”SubjectUserName”>WIN-GG82ULGC9GO&greenback;</Information>
 <Information Title=”SubjectDomainName”>CONTOSO</Information>
 <Information Title=”SubjectLogonId”>0xe8c85cc</Information>
 <Information Title=”NewProcessId“>0x17eac</Information>
 <Information Title=”NewProcessName”>C:\Program Information\Google\Chrome\Utility\chrome&interval;exe</Information>
 <Information Title=”TokenElevationType”>%%1938</Information>
 <Information Title=”ProcessId”>0x16d8</Information>
 <Information Title=”CommandLine”>”C:\Program Information\Google\Chrome\Utility\chrome&interval;exe” </Information>
 <Information Title=”TargetUserSid”>S-1-0-0</Information>
 <Information Title=”TargetUserName”>-</Information>
 <Information Title=”TargetDomainName”>-</Information>
 <Information Title=”TargetLogonId”>0x0</Information>
 <Information Title=”ParentProcessName”>C:\Home windows\explorer&interval;exe</Information>
 <Information Title=”MandatoryLabel”>S-1-16-8192</Information>
 </EventData>
</Occasion>

The essential half right here is the
NewProcessId, in hex
0x17eac
which is
97964.
A 16385 occasion seems like this:
<Occasion xmlns=”http://schemas&interval;microsoft&interval;com/win/2004/08/occasions/occasion”>
 <System>
 <Supplier Title=”Microsoft-Home windows-Crypto-DPAPI” Guid=”{…}” />
 <EventID>16385</EventID>
 <Model>0</Model>
 <Degree>4</Degree>
 <Process>64</Process>
 <Opcode>0</Opcode>
 <Key phrases>0x2000000000000040</Key phrases>
 <TimeCreated SystemTime=”2024-03-28T20:06:42&interval;1772585Z” />
 <EventRecordID>826993</EventRecordID>
 <Correlation ActivityID=”{777bf68d-7757-0028-b5f6-7b775777da01}” />
 <Execution ProcessID=”1392″ ThreadID=”57108″ />
 <Channel>Microsoft-Home windows-Crypto-DPAPI/Debug</Channel>
 <Laptop>WIN-GG82ULGC9GO&interval;contoso&interval;native</Laptop>
 <Safety UserID=”S-1-5-18″ />
 </System>
 <EventData>
 <Information Title=”OperationType“>SPCryptUnprotect</Information>
 <Information Title=”DataDescription“>Google Chrome</Information>
 <Information Title=”MasterKeyGUID”>{4df0861b-07ea-49f4-9a09-1d66fd1131c3}</Information>
 <Information Title=”Flags”>0</Information>
 <Information Title=”ProtectionFlags”>16</Information>
 <Information Title=”ReturnValue”>0</Information>
 <Information Title=”CallerProcessStartKey”>32651097299526713</Information>
 <Information Title=”CallerProcessID“>97964</Information>
 <Information Title=”CallerProcessCreationTime”>133561300019253302</Information>
 <Information Title=”PlainTextDataSize”>32</Information>
 </EventData>
</Occasion>

The essential elements listed below are the
OperationType, the
DataDescription
and the
CallerProcessID.
For DPAPI decrypts, the
OperationType
shall be SPCryptUnprotect.
Every Chromium based mostly browser will tag its knowledge with the product identify, e.g. Google Chrome, or Microsoft Edge relying on the proprietor of the info. It will at all times seem within the
DataDescription
area, so it’s potential to differentiate browser knowledge from different DPAPI secured knowledge.
Lastly, the
CallerProcessID
will map to the method performing the decryption. On this case, it’s 97964 which matches the method ID seen within the 4688 occasion above, displaying that this was probably Google Chrome decrypting its personal knowledge! Keep in mind that since these logs solely comprise the trail to the executable, for a full assurance that that is really Chrome (and never malware pretending to be Chrome, or malware injecting into Chrome), extra protections akin to eradicating administrator entry, and software allowlisting is also used to provide a better assurance of this sign. In latest variations of Chrome or Edge, you may also see logs of decryptions taking place within the elevation_service.exe course of, which is one other professional a part of the browser’s knowledge storage.
To detect unauthorized DPAPI entry, you’ll want to generate a operating map of all processes utilizing 4688 occasions, then search for 16385 occasions which have a CallerProcessID that doesn’t match a sound caller – Let’s attempt that now.
Testing with a python password stealer
We will take a look at that this works with a public script to decrypt passwords taken from
a public weblog. It generates two occasions, as anticipated:
Right here is the 16385 occasion, displaying {that a} course of is decrypting the “Google Chrome” key.
<Occasion xmlns=”http://schemas&interval;microsoft&interval;com/win/2004/08/occasions/occasion”>
 <System>
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 <EventID>16385</EventID>
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 <TimeCreated SystemTime=”2024-03-28T20:28:13&interval;7891561Z” />
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 </System>
 <EventData>
 <Information Title=”OperationType”>SPCryptUnprotect</Information>
 <Information Title=”DataDescription”>Google Chrome</Information>
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 <Information Title=”CallerProcessID”>68768</Information>
 <Information Title=”CallerProcessCreationTime”>133561312936527018</Information>
 <Information Title=”PlainTextDataSize”>32</Information>
 </EventData>
</Occasion>
For the reason that knowledge description being decrypted was “Google Chrome” we all know that is an try to learn Chrome secrets and techniques, however to find out the method behind 68768 (0x10ca0), we have to correlate this with a 4688 occasion.
Right here is the corresponding 4688 occasion from the Safety Log (a course of begin for python3.exe) with the matching course of id:
<Occasion xmlns=”http://schemas&interval;microsoft&interval;com/win/2004/08/occasions/occasion”>
 <System>
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 <EventID>4688</EventID>
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 <TimeCreated SystemTime=”2024-03-28T20:28:13&interval;6527871Z” />
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 </System>
 <EventData>
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 <Information Title=”NewProcessId”>0x10ca0</Information>
 <Information Title=”NewProcessName”>C:\python3\bin\python3&interval;exe</Information>
 <Information Title=”TokenElevationType”>%%1938</Information>
 <Information Title=”ProcessId”>0xca58</Information>
 <Information Title=”CommandLine”>“c:\python3\bin\python3&interval;exe” steal_passwords&interval;py</Information>
 < &interval;&interval;&interval; >
 <Information Title=”ParentProcessName”>C:\Home windows\System32\cmd&interval;exe</Information>
 </EventData>
</Occasion>
On this case, the method id matches the python3 executable operating a doubtlessly malicious script, so we all know that is probably very suspicious conduct, and may set off an alert instantly! Keep in mind course of ids on Home windows are usually not distinctive so you’ll want to be sure to use the 4688 occasion with the timestamp closest, however sooner than, the 16385 occasion.
Abstract
This weblog has described a method for robust detection of cookie and credential theft. We hope that each one defenders discover this put up helpful. Due to Microsoft for including the DPAPIDefInformationEvent log sort, with out which this is able to not be potential.