[tr4cefl0w]

The article mentions that Python malware comes with difficulties but in my experience it has the advantage to be an easy and simple way to write reliable malware. Packaging with PyInstaller to create a single (but large) executable is easy and helps avoiding detection as the interpreter is embedded in the PE (I never went in depth on this topic but it would be interesting to check out).

Shameless plug; I wrote a few popular articles on 0x00sec about Python malware on Windows just to show how simple and easy it is to build either using ctypes to call WinAPI functions or using pywin32 wrapper which makes the whole thing a lot faster.

See part 1 here https://0x00sec.org/t/malware-writing-python-malware-part-1/...

Definitely not the way to go if you have limited memory and need to write tiny shell code but it’s good enough for a stage 2 payload.

[vesche]

Author here: I've seen your guides before, they're really great! I'd say my article looks at the difficulties, but also the great benefits malware authors have by writing in Python.

> Packaging with PyInstaller to create a single (but large) executable is easy and helps avoiding detection as the interpreter is embedded in the PE

If you look down further in the article it explores detecting PyInstaller generated executable using simple YARA rules. So, I'd disagree a bit there. I personally think that Nuitka (talked about in the article) in conjunction with a packer would be the best compilation method to use in-order to evade detection. It's actually quite surprising to me that limited malware samples have been seen in the wild using Nuitka, but as the title of the articles states- it's on the rise.

[tr4cefl0w]

You’re totally right about Yara. Unfortunately I skimmed through the article pretty fast before commenting as I was on a rush when I read it and missed this part. Just finished a second read, great article and well detailed. But my point about detection is more about the good old VirusTotal submission.

As for Nuitka, I was not able to make it work but I will try again. The alternative I also tried in the past was using Cython to generate C code then compile it but because it requires packaging Python std libs Dlls it was too much trouble and I ran into crashes when running.

I also had bad experiences when using packers because they have a tendency to trigger AV detection just for being packers, like ASProtect. Python malware is definitely a topic that deserves more in depth dive.

Good work!

[UncleEntity]

> If you look down further in the article it explores detecting PyInstaller generated executable using simple YARA rules.

Which can be easily patched out with a simple sed rule as it just uses a text search of the binary.