Another update to Enigma Virtual Box unpacker

kao

Enigma Virtual Box authors made some changes in version 10.70 and broke my unpacker again. 🙁 To be able to support more and more versions, my unpacker requires some serious redesign.
That will take some thinking time and energy but I'll eventually get around to it.

In the meantime, here's a quick fix:

  • Detects and unpacks Enigma Virtual Box versions 10.70 and 10.80;

How security plugins for Autoplay Media Studio fail, pt.2

kao

Few weeks ago I wrote an article about misunderstood security in Autoplay Media Studio plugins. Two days later, author of DCrypto plugin released an updated version of the plugin. And just recently, he started to sell his plugin by making some pretty bold claims:

I present to you DCrypto with an advanced encryption that allows you to obfuscate your LUA 1.5 code in 256 Bit encryption with one of the best encryptions on the market, in addition to optimizing your source code, it will be protected with super protection.

Let's see how super this protection really is! 🙂
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How security plugins for Autoplay Media Studio fail

kao

Every once in a while I encounter a strange anti-reverse engineering protection. Protection authors are so focused on improving one specific aspect of the protection that completely overlook other, much easier ways how the system can be defeated.

Their logic is like this - someone stole my code, I better protect it. I've heard that cryptography is good, so I'll use that. Oh no, someone stole my code again! Let me add another layer of encryption over it! Few days/weeks/months later - Those bloody hackers won't stop! Let me protect my encryption code with another encryption!

Facepalm.

What the authors should do instead is stop and think. What do I want to protect? Against whom? For how long? What kind of loss is acceptable to me?

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Update of unpackers

kao

Enigma Virtual Box unpacker

There are plenty of changes.

  • Properly detect versions 9.50..9.90
  • Unpacks files packed with 9.80 and 9.90
  • Added command-line parameter "/nodiskspace", as requested by some users. If it crashes during unpacking because it ran out of disk space, it's your problem.
  • Unpacker properly handles invalid input filename

Molebox 2.x unpacker

  • Support more versions of very old Molebox
  • Unpacking files with digital signatures should be improved
  • Some rare bugs have been fixed

Autoplay Media Studio unpacker

  • Added support for AMS version 8.5.3.0.
  • Support for Imagine MemoryEx encrypted files, as requested by someone.

What is MemoryEx?

MemoryEx is a plugin released by Imagine Programming, allowing for more advanced operations from within the Lua environment you will find in Autoplay Media Studio 8.

While it's not a very common plugin, there are several niche programs which use this plugin. For example, most programs from dindroid.com use it.

When you unpack such file, please pay attention to the "Found protected file" messages:

As you can see, unpacker created some .luac files.

Next, you will need to find a LUA decompiler and decompile these files. I suggest you try unluac, luadec or whichever LUA decompiler you prefer.

Decompiler should produce .lua file which contains all the interesting stuff. For example, part of G-Nerator code looks like this:

return {
  info = {
    name = "Anderson M Santos",
    author = "dindroid.com",
    contact = "andersonnsantos36@gmail.com"
  },
  functions = {
    Install = function()
      function Stile_Sonbre_P()
        sHandl = Application.GetWndHandle()
        DLL.CallFunction(_SystemFolder .. "\\User32.dll", "SetClassLongA", sHandl .. ",-26," .. 131072, DLL_RETURN_TYPE_LONG, DLL_CALL_STDCALL)
        if Label.GetText("local") == "C:\\" then
          Label.SetText("local", _ProgramFilesFolder .. "\\Dindroid")
        end
        Image.Load("imico", _TempFolder .. "\\icon.tmp")
        Image.Load("imc", _TempFolder .. "\\bts_01.tmp")
      end
      function Install()
        Folder.Create(_ProgramFilesFolder .. "\\Dindroid" .. "\\G-Nerator")
        File.Copy(_SourceFolder .. "\\Install\\*.*", _ProgramFilesFolder .. "\\Dindroid" .. "\\G-Nerator", true, true, false, true, nil)
        sP = System.EnumerateProcesses()
        for j, file_path in pairs(sP) do
          file = String.SplitPath(file_path)
          if file.Filename .. file.Extension == "GNerator.exe" then
            File.Copy(file_path, _ProgramFilesFolder .. "\\Dindroid" .. "\\G-Nerator\\")
          end
        end
        Shell.CreateShortcut(String.Replace(_WindowsFolder, "Windows", "") .. "\\Users\\Public\\Desktop", "G-Nerator", _ProgramFilesFolder .. "\\Dindroid" .. "\\G-Nerator\\GN.exe", "", "", _ProgramFilesFolder .. "\\Dindroid\\G-Nerator\\GN.exe", 0, SW_SHOWNORMAL, nil, "")
....

That's all folks, have fun using it!

As always - if you notice any bugs, please report them. And most importantly - Happy New Year everybody! 🙂

Hacking resources for fun and no profit, part 1

kao

In this article I'll show how I made VMWare Workstation 15 awesome again using a little-known Resource Hacker feature called "scripting".

But first, a bit of background..

Upgrade of VMWare

People who know me know that I prefer stable, tried-and-true solutions. Be it my primary operating system, the tools I'm using or things I eat for breakfast. Once I know that something is good, I don't want to change it.

So, for a long time I was using VMWare Workstation 10. It just worked. But as the new versions of Windows came out, they started requiring hypervisor to support some specific features. Otherwise it just won't work. For example, to be able to install Windows 10 1803, you will need VMWare 14.x. To install Windows 10 1903, you will need VMWare 15.x.

And so, after a long time of holding out, I decided to upgrade.
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