Operating System Boot Profile Detection for Malicious Activity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for securing computer systems against malicious operating system booting and early load operations have weaknesses, such as reliance on secure boot and driver validation, which can be exploited by adversaries through obfuscation or manipulation of kernel drivers and memory modifications.
Innovation Solution
A three-fold runtime system that identifies and hashes essential boot components and configuration information to create an operating system boot profile, verifies boot modules at runtime, and uses reverse-engineered knowledge of kernel data structures and memory layout to detect remnants of loaded and unloaded modules, incorporating forensic analysis to ensure only approved modules are used during system startup.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If secure boot and driver validation processes are used to protect system integrity, then system security is improved, but adversaries can still exploit weaknesses through obfuscation and manipulation of kernel drivers
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary hashing of essential boot components and configuration information to create an operating system boot profile before runtime verification. This pre-computed profile serves as a baseline for detecting deviations during actual system operation, allowing the system to prepare security verification data in advance rather than reacting to threats in real-time
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary verification layer that compares runtime boot module hashes against the pre-computed boot profile. This intermediary mechanism acts as a mediator between the trusted boot process and the potentially compromised runtime environment, detecting malicious deviations without requiring direct trust in runtime validation code
2Reliability
If kernel driver validation through signing processes is implemented, then driver integrity is improved, but adversaries can create obfuscated drivers that pass approval
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and separately verifies critical boot components and configuration information by hashing them individually and storing their hashes in the boot profile. This extraction approach allows verification of essential elements without requiring complete trust in the overall driver approval process, isolating verification to specific trusted components
3Speed
If global variables in memory are used for driver validation, then validation speed is improved, but adversaries can modify these variables to disable protection
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a copy of the essential boot components and configuration information in the form of hashed values stored in the boot profile. Instead of relying on mutable global variables that can be modified in memory, the verification process compares runtime hashes against these immutable copied hashes, maintaining validation speed while preventing adversary modification attacks
Data Source
AI summary
A system detects deviation from a computer operating system boot and operating system load. The system identifies approved operating system boot modules, approved operating system load modules, essential operating system boot components, and essential operating system configuration information, which are then hashed to create an operating system boot profile. The operating system boot modules and the operating system load modules are then executed to start the operating system. The operating system boot profile is used to verify that that there has not be any deviation from the start of the operating system.