Following on from our latest article on the kernel drivers in Sophos Intercept X, by which we mentioned how they’re examined and what they do, we’re offering additional transparency into the internal workings of Intercept X – this time with a take a look at content material updates which can be both configuration modifications that end in modifications to code execution paths, or are code themselves.
Intercept X makes use of a mix of real-time Cloud lookups and on-device content material updates. As a result of the risk panorama is continually evolving and shifting, it’s essential that on-device content material updates are delivered continuously (some on-device information modifications much less continuously, however might require updates at brief discover). Nonetheless, this comes with its personal dangers; if content material updates are corrupt or invalid, this can lead to disruption.
Sophos makes use of a typical mechanism to distribute on-device content material updates, that are loaded into low-privileged Sophos user-space processes (relatively than being loaded into or interpreted by Sophos kernel drivers) from Sophos’s Content material Distribution Community (CDN). Content material updates type one of many three predominant parts of Intercept X, together with software program from the CDN, and coverage and configuration from Sophos Central.
On this article, we’ll discover the varied varieties of content material updates we use, how we confirm and validate them, and the way the ecosystem is architected to keep away from points brought on by corrupt or faulty content material. (As we famous in our earlier article, Intercept X (and all its parts) has additionally been a part of an exterior bug bounty program since December 14, 2017.)
It’s value noting that the main points inside this text are right as of this writing (August 2024) however might change sooner or later as we proceed to replace and develop options.
Sophos delivers new content material updates to prospects in ‘launch teams.’ Every Sophos Central tenant is assigned to a launch group.
The primary launch group is for inner engineering testing; we don’t assign any manufacturing prospects to it. This permits our engineering groups to check new content material updates on manufacturing infrastructure, with out requiring any guide steps. If testing fails, we abort the discharge with out continuing to any additional launch teams.
If engineering qualification succeeds, we manually promote the discharge to the ‘Sophos inner’ launch group (‘dogfooding’). This consists of Sophos staff’ manufacturing gadgets, in addition to staff’ private accounts. Once more, if issues are detected or reported, we abort the discharge and don’t proceed any additional.
All being properly, we then manually promote the discharge to public launch teams. From this level, the Sophos launch techniques mechanically publish the brand new content material replace to all the discharge teams over a interval of a number of hours or days by default (see Determine 1 beneath).
Determine 1: Phases of launch, with verification checks at every section
Sophos AutoUpdate – a part of Intercept X – checks for brand new content material updates each hour, though in follow updates are much less frequent than this (see desk beneath).
Sophos AutoUpdate downloads every content material replace from the CDN and checks to see if new content material replace packages can be found for the suitable launch group.
Content material updates are time-stamped and signed utilizing SHA-384 and a non-public Sophos certificates chain. Sophos AutoUpdate verifies the updates it downloads. If it detects corrupt or untrusted updates, it discards them and warns each Sophos and the Sophos Central administrator. As well as, to guard towards stale CDN caches or malicious replay assaults, Sophos AutoUpdate rejects any otherwise-valid replace whose signature timestamp is older than the already-downloaded replace.
If a brand new content material replace package deal is offered, Sophos AutoUpdate downloads and installs it utilizing the related package deal installer. Completely different updates are dealt with by completely different parts of Intercept X.
The next content material updates are a part of the newest Intercept X launch (2042.2).
Desk 1: An outline of the content material updates which can be a part of the newest Intercept X launch (2024.2)
Determine 2: A diagram illustrating which Sophos processes (proven in navy blue) load which content material updates (proven in purple)
DatasetA
DatasetA is loaded by SophosFileScanner.exe, a low-privilege course of with no filesystem entry (aside from its log folder and a brief listing used for scanning massive objects). It hundreds the Sophos Anti-Virus Interface (SAVI).
SophosFileScanner.exe scans content material following scan requests from different Sophos processes. Though it’s known as “SophosFileScanner.exe”, the identify is considerably historic: it’s the major content material scanner in Intercept X, scanning recordsdata, course of reminiscence, community site visitors, and so forth.
LocalRepData
LocalRepData comprises two fame lists:
- Repute by SHA-256
- Repute by signer
When a Home windows executable begins execution, Intercept X appears to be like it up within the LocalRepData by its SHA-256 hash and its signature (assuming it’s validly signed). If the fame is offered by LocalRepData, Intercept X ‘tags’ the method with the fame (Sophos guidelines deal with high-reputation recordsdata and processes otherwise – as an example, exempting them from cleanup).
SSPService.exe makes use of LocalRepData to assign fame as processes launch.
SophosFileScanner.exe additionally hundreds LocalRepData, in order that it might probably assign fame to embedded executable streams it discovers in content material aside from executed recordsdata.
Habits
Habits guidelines are loaded by SSPService.exe. Guidelines recordsdata comprise signed and encrypted Lua code. SSPService.exe verifies, decrypts and hundreds the foundations right into a sandboxed LuaJIT interpreter with entry solely to Sophos-internal APIs.
Lua is a quick, embedded scripting language. Sophos makes use of Lua for habits guidelines as a result of it supplies a versatile solution to ship new habits detections while not having a brand new software program launch, however whereas nonetheless sustaining security. The principles are loaded in user-space, so can not trigger a crucial system failure in the event that they misbehave. As well as, Sophos builds its guidelines engine with out the Lua base libraries – the one entry to the system is by way of Sophos’ inner API, which is hardened towards unintentional misuse by the habits guidelines. Sophos collects in depth telemetry about rule runtimes, and repeatedly tunes and reduces runtime overhead.
Guidelines are reactors: Intercept X supplies varied occasions, and guidelines register handlers for these occasions. Guidelines may configure varied aggregation parameters for some high-volume occasions, permitting the sensor to coalesce or discard sure occasions.
Flags
Flags are the means by which Sophos regularly permits new options in Intercept X. Flags are delivered in two methods:
- The Flags Complement comprises a baseline set of flags similar to the obtainable options within the software program
- The Flags Service is a Sophos Central microservice that permits Sophos Launch Engineers to configure flags throughout a number of tenants
The Flags Complement for a given software program launch comprises a set of characteristic flags and the way the characteristic needs to be enabled:
| Flag Complement Worth | Flag Service Worth | Function is… |
| Off | Ignored | Off |
| Obtainable | Off | Off |
| Obtainable | On | On |
This mechanism offers Sophos a number of avenues to allow and disable options.
- Sophos can introduce new options with the flag “Obtainable” (however not enabled within the Flags Service)
- Sophos can regularly allow new options utilizing the Flags Service to allow flags throughout tenants
- Sophos can disable a problematic characteristic by disabling the flag within the Flags Service
- Sophos can disable a problematic characteristic in a particular software program launch by altering the discharge’s Flags Complement.
CRT
The Competitor Removing Device (CRT) comprises a algorithm for eradicating known-incompatible software program in the course of the set up. It’s mechanically downloaded by the installer, and is eliminated after set up.
Usually the CRT is just not utilized by Intercept X; nevertheless, if a buyer installs a non-protection element like Sophos Machine Encryption, and later opts to deploy Intercept X, the prevailing agent downloads and installs the CRT and runs it previous to set up. As soon as Intercept X is put in, the CRT is mechanically eliminated.
Endpoint Self Assist Ruleset
The Endpoint Self Assist (ESH) guidelines are a set of standard expressions for sure log recordsdata. If Sophos engineers have recognized a typical root trigger or misconfiguration, they’ll publish a brand new rule and hyperlink again to the Information Base Article (KBA) describing the issue and the steered resolution(s).
ScheduledQueryPack
The scheduled question pack content material replace comprises an inventory of scheduled queries and their execution frequency. The principles are loaded by SophosOsquery.exe; the output is delivered by McsClient.exe for ingestion by the Sophos Central Knowledge Lake.
SophosOsquery.exe has a built-in watchdog that stops ‘runaway’ queries from consuming extreme CPU or reminiscence. Sophos collects telemetry on scheduled question efficiency, and commonly optimizes and tunes scheduled queries to keep away from triggering the watchdog.
RemapperRules
The remapper guidelines are loaded by McsAgent.exe and used to ‘remap’ Sophos Central coverage settings into the Endpoint configuration, saved within the Home windows registry underneath HKLMSOFTWARESophosManagementPolicy.
The coverage is equipped from Central as a set of XML paperwork. The principles are additionally a set of XML paperwork that describe the construction of the information saved within the registry and supply XPath queries and some conversion capabilities to extract content material from the coverage XML and generate registry information.
If a rule file is corrupt, or if processing them fails for another cause, not one of the registry values outlined by that file are up to date and any earlier settings are left intact. Processing of different, legitimate, rule recordsdata is equally unaffected.
EPIPS_data
The EPIPS_data content material replace comprises intrusion prevention system (IPS) signatures loaded by SophosIPS.exe. SophosIPS.exe comprises a Sophos-built IPS product; the signatures are IPS signatures revealed by SophosLabs.
SophosIPS.exe runs as a low-privilege course of. When IPS is enabled, the sntp.sys driver sends packets to SophosIPS.exe for filtering; SophosIPS.exe responds to the driving force with instructions to just accept or reject the packets.
Interacting with community flows packet-by-packet deep within the community stack requires excessive care. The Home windows Filtering Platform (WFP) callouts at L2 are very delicate to the underlying drivers, usually from third-parties, that service the bodily and media entry layers. Due to the excessive danger to system stability, the IPS characteristic screens itself for BSODs or community disruptions which can be seemingly brought on by third-party driver interactions. If detected, the IPS characteristic mechanically disables itself and units the endpoint’s well being standing to pink as an alert to the incompatibility.
NTP_OVERRIDES
One of many potential points when constructing a Home windows Filtering Platform (WFP) kernel driver is that though the platform is designed for a number of drivers to work together with the filtering stack on the identical time, Sophos has recognized sure third-party software program packages that aren’t appropriate with the IPS characteristic, which requires the flexibility to intercept and manipulate L2 packets.
The NTP_OVERRIDES content material replace comprises an inventory of known-incompatible drivers. If IPS is enabled in coverage however deployed on a tool with an incompatible driver, SophosNtpService.exe disables IPS, overriding the coverage.
That is delivered as a content material replace in order that as new incompatible drivers are found, Sophos can react dynamically to guard different prospects with the identical configuration. As well as, if Sophos or third-parties replace drivers to handle the incompatibility, Sophos can take away the driving force as of a sure model.
RepairKit
Throughout every hourly replace, Sophos AutoUpdate executes a self-repair program (su-repair.exe) to detect and proper any repairable recognized points. The RepairKit was initially constructed to detect and restore file corruption brought on by unclean shutdowns that might corrupt the Sophos set up. Over time, the Sophos engineering staff has used this facility to right many points that traditionally would have required a Sophos assist engagement with the shopper, or doubtlessly gone unnoticed till a future software program replace flagged the difficulty.
RepairKit guidelines are written in Lua and loaded by su-repair.exe. The principles are encrypted and signed. If su-repair.exe fails to load the RepairKit guidelines, it hundreds a baked-in ‘final resort’ ruleset which solely focuses on repairing Sophos AutoUpdate itself.
RepairKit guidelines have broad entry to the machine and run as SYSTEM, since they want the flexibility to right privileged keys and recordsdata.
TELEMSUP
This telemetry content material replace comprises a JSON doc describing how usually and the place to submit telemetry:
{
"additionalHeaders": "x-amz-acl:bucket-owner-full-control",
"port": 0,
"resourceRoot": "prod",
"server": "t1.sophosupd.com",
"verb": "PUT",
"interval": 86400
}
The telemetry content material replace has not modified because it was launched in 2016.
APPFEED, USERAPPFEED
The APPFEED content material updates comprise signed and encrypted Lua snippets for detecting put in purposes and dynamically producing exclusions for them.
If an utility is detected for which the APPFEED comprises exclusion guidelines, the foundations dynamically generate machine-specific exclusions primarily based on the put in utility. These exclusions are reported again to Sophos Central for informational show to the Sophos Central administrator.
The principles have read-only entry to the registry and filesystem, and usually function by on the lookout for recognized apps within the Add/Take away Applications registry keys. Some purposes, like Microsoft SQL Server, require executing PowerShell script to detect optionally available OS parts.
APPFEED and USERAPPFEED are loaded by an occasion of SEDService.exe.
ProductRulesFeed
Product guidelines are loaded by SSPService.exe. They’re in the identical format as Habits guidelines, with the identical entry and privileges. They’re loaded into the identical LuaJIT interpreter and supply core performance required by the Habits guidelines.
ML fashions
The ML fashions content material replace comprises a number of machine studying fashions loaded by SophosFileScanner.exe. Not like most content material updates, ML fashions comprise Home windows DLLs that comprise the core ML mannequin logic, in addition to the ‘weights’ – the results of coaching and tuning fashions within the SophosLabs Cloud.
The ML fashions are loaded by SophosFileScanner.exe and are run in the identical low-privilege atmosphere. SophosFileScanner.exe helps loading two variations of every mannequin: ‘telemetry’ and ‘reside.’ Sophos makes use of this functionality to ship candidate ML fashions in telemetry mode. When SophosFileScanner.exe has an ML mannequin in telemetry mode, it selects a pattern of information for telemetry evaluation, and runs it by way of the telemetry mannequin (along with regular actions). The output from the telemetry mannequin, alongside the information collected by the traditional fashions, supplies telemetry to Sophos for evaluation and coaching.
Sophos delivers ML fashions as content material updates so {that a} new ML mannequin can get a number of iterations of telemetry, retraining, and fine-tuning earlier than being promoted to the reside mannequin.
Because the ML mannequin replace comprises executable code, Sophos releases it extra regularly and with extra gates:
- It spends extra time within the early launch teams (engineering testing and Sophos Inner)
- It’s launched over a number of weeks, not hours.
Hmpa_data
The Hmpa_data content material replace comprises a worldwide allowlist of HitmanPro.Alert thumbprints. Each HitmanPro.Alert detection creates a novel thumbprint for the related mitigation and the detection-specific data. For instance, a thumbprint for a StackPivot mitigation may embody the method and the previous few stack frames.
Hmpa_data comprises a compact checklist of worldwide allowed thumbprints. The HitmanPro.Alert service hmpalertsvc.exe makes use of this database to rapidly and quietly suppress detections, cut back false positives, and keep away from efficiency or stability points.
- The HitmanPro.Alert driver, hmpalert.sys, generates thumbprints and sends them to the service for any driver-based mitigation: CryptoGuard, CiGuard, PrivGuard, and many others.
- The HitmanPro.Alert hook DLL, hmpalert.dll, which is injected into consumer processes, generates thumbprints for every detection and sends them to the service for reporting.
So as to preserve tempo with the ever-evolving risk panorama, and to guard towards rising threats, it’s vitally vital to commonly replace safety merchandise with new information. Nonetheless, corrupt or faulty content material updates could cause disruptions, so it’s additionally important that there are mechanisms in place to assist make sure that they’re legitimate, signed, and verified.
On this article, we’ve offered a high-level overview of the content material updates we use in Intercept X – exploring what they’re, how usually they’re delivered, how they’re validated and verified, the precise low-privileged processes they’re loaded into, and the strategies we use to roll them out in a staged and managed method.
As we alluded to in our earlier article on Intercept X kernel drivers, balancing safety and security is dangerous – however we’re dedicated to managing that danger, as transparently as attainable.