I created a DLL injector program using C and a DLL. When I am trying to run the program the target process crash (I tried a notepad and cmd). I am compiling the injector as 64 bit and the DLL as well. the program and the DLL compiled with Visual Studio.
After some checks a saw if I remove the CreateRemoteThread
The program will not crash, and the DLL injected (of course without executing the DLL).
I tried to use RUNDLL32.exe
to check if the DLL is the problem and I have been able to see the message box.
Injector:
#include <Windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
// The DLL path we want to inject and the target process id.
LPCSTR dllpath = "C:\\Users\\....\\hello-world.dll";
int processID = 2980;
printf("#### Starting ####\n");
// Open target process handle
HANDLE hProcess = OpenProcess(PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS, FALSE, processID);
if (hProcess == NULL) {
//close handles
CloseHandle(hProcess);
printf("[!] Unable to find the target process id: %d\n" , processID);
return 1;
}
printf("[+] Open target process handle\n");
// Getting targt memory address for the dll path
LPVOID dllpathMemoryAddr = VirtualAllocEx(hProcess, NULL, strlen(dllpath) + 1, MEM_COMMIT | MEM_RESERVE, PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE);
if (dllpathMemoryAddr == NULL) {
//close handles
CloseHandle(hProcess);
printf("[!] Unable to get memory address of target process for the dllpath");
return 1;
}
printf("[+] Allocate the memory address to store the dllpath\n");
// Writing the dll path to the target memory address
BOOL succeedWrite = WriteProcessMemory(hProcess, dllpathMemoryAddr, dllpath, strlen(dllpath) + 1, NULL);
if (!succeedWrite) {
//close handles
CloseHandle(hProcess);
printf("[!] Unable to write to the memory address of target process the dllpath\n");
return 1;
}
printf("[+] Writed the dllpath to memory\n");
// Getting LoadLibreryA address
FARPROC loadLibAddr =
(GetModuleHandle(TEXT("kernel32.dll")), "LoadLibraryA");
if (loadLibAddr == NULL) {
// free the memory
VirtualFreeEx(hProcess, dllpathMemoryAddr, 0, MEM_RELEASE);
//close handles
CloseHandle(hProcess);
printf("[!] Unable to get the memory address of LoadLibraryA function\n");
return 1;
}
printf("[+] Allocate the memory address to LoadLibraryA function\n");
// Create remote thread on the remote process to load the dll
HANDLE rThread = CreateRemoteThread(hProcess, 0, 0, (LPTHREAD_START_ROUTINE)loadLibAddr, dllpathMemoryAddr, 0, NULL);
if (rThread == NULL) {
// free the memory
VirtualFreeEx(hProcess, dllpathMemoryAddr, 0, MEM_RELEASE);
//close handles
CloseHandle(hProcess);
printf("[!] Unable to create thread to execute the LoadLibraryA function\n the error: %u\n", GetLastError());
return 1;
}
printf("[+] Created remote thread to execute the dll\n");
// Waiting to opertion to complete
WaitForSingleObject(rThread, INFINITE);
// free the memory
VirtualFreeEx(hProcess, dllpathMemoryAddr, 0, MEM_RELEASE);
//close handles
CloseHandle(hProcess);
CloseHandle(rThread);
printf("#### DLL INJECTED ####\n");
return TRUE;
}
DLL
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h>
extern "C" __declspec(dllexport)
BOOL APIENTRY DllMain(HMODULE hModule,
DWORD ul_reason_for_call,
LPVOID lpReserved) {
switch (ul_reason_for_call) {
case DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH:
MessageBox(NULL, "Hello world!", "Hello World!", NULL);
break;
case DLL_THREAD_ATTACH:
case DLL_THREAD_DETACH:
case DLL_PROCESS_DETACH:
break;
}
return TRUE;
}
output:
#### Starting ####
[+] Open target process handle
[+] Allocate the memory address to store the dllpath
[+] Writed the dllpath to memory
[+] Allocate the memory address to LoadLibraryA function
[+] Created remote thread to execute the dll
#### DLL INJECTED ####
If I understand the comments of the OP correctly, the main problem was that the OP had originally used the following line (before editing the question):
BOOL succeedWrite = WriteProcessMemory(hProcess, dllpathMemoryAddr, dllpath, strlen(dllpath), NULL);
By writing strlen(dllpath)
instead of strlen(dllpath) + 1
bytes, the OP did not write the terminating null character of the string into the remote process. Therefore, the remote process likely crashed when that non-terminated string was passed as a function parameter to LoadLibraryA
.
As pointed out in the comments section, there were also some other problems with the code, but it is unlikely that these were the cause of the crash.