Introduction
Traditional antivirus solutions rely on signature-based detection and heuristic analysis to block malicious payloads. However, skilled penetration testers can use evasion tools like Shellter to bypass these defenses. Shellter is a dynamic shellcode injection tool that modifies legitimate Windows executables to hide and run payloads stealthily.
Why Antivirus Evasion is Important in Pentesting
Testing an organization’s antivirus defenses provides crucial insight into the effectiveness of endpoint protection mechanisms. Evasion techniques simulate real-world malware behavior, allowing red teams to evaluate how well antivirus and EDR solutions can detect and respond to obfuscated threats.
Using Shellter for Payload Obfuscation
- Prepare Payload: Use Metasploit to generate a reverse TCP shell (e.g.,
msfvenom -p windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp). - Select Host Executable: Choose a clean and non-suspicious Windows executable like
putty.exeor another legitimate binary. - Run Shellter: Launch Shellter in automatic mode and let it handle the code injection and obfuscation process.
- Deploy and Test: Execute the modified binary on the target system and observe the session opening in Metasploit, verifying successful evasion.
Benefits of Shellter
- Dynamic Shellcode Injection: Injects payloads into real PE files without corrupting functionality.
- Obfuscation Techniques: Automatically mutates code to avoid signature detection.
- Low Detection Rate: Outputs often remain undetected by most AVs, especially after basic encoding.
Limitations and Ethics
Shellter is a powerful tool, but it must be used ethically within the bounds of authorized penetration testing. Misuse can lead to legal consequences. Also, advanced EDR systems may still flag modified
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