Mcafee, Inc.

Amit Dang

Preet Mohinder

Vivek Srivastava

A system and method for rootkit protection in a hypervisor environment includes modules for creating a soft whitelist having entries corresponding to each guest kernel page of a guest operating system in a hypervisor environment, wherein each entry is a duplicate page of the corresponding guest kernel page, generating a page fault when a process attempts to access a guest kernel page, and redirecting the process to the corresponding duplicate page. If the page fault is a data page fault, the method includes fixing the page fault, and marking a page table entry corresponding to the guest kernel page as non-executable and writeable. If the page fault is an instruction page fault, the method includes marking a page table entry corresponding to the guest kernel page as read-only. Redirecting changing a machine page frame number in a shadow page table of the hypervisor to point to the corresponding duplicate page.

System and method for kernel rootkit protection in a hypervisor environment

A method in one example implementation includes intercepting a request associated with an execution of an object (e.g., a kernel module or a binary) in a computer configured to operate in a virtual machine environment. The request is associated with a privileged domain of the computer that operates logically below one or more operating systems. The method also includes verifying an authorization of the object by computing a checksum for the object and comparing the checksum to a plurality of stored checksums in a memory element. The execution of the object is denied if it is not authorized. In other embodiments, the method can include evaluating a plurality of entries within the memory element of the computer, wherein the entries include authorized binaries and kernel modules. In other embodiments, the method can include intercepting an attempt from a remote computer to execute code from a previously authorized binary.

System and method for enforcing security policies in a virtual environment

A system and method in one embodiment includes modules for creating a soft whitelist having entries corresponding to each guest kernel page in a guest operating system in a hypervisor environment, generating a page fault when an access attempt is made to a guest kernel page, fixing the page fault to allow access and execution if the guest kernel page corresponds to one of the entries in the soft whitelist, and denying execution if the guest kernel page does not correspond to any of the entries in the soft whitelist. If the page fault is an instruction page fault, and the guest kernel page corresponds to one of the entries in the soft whitelist, the method includes marking the guest kernel page as read-only and executable. The soft whitelist includes a hash of machine page frame numbers corresponding to virtual addresses of each guest kernel page.

A method includes creating a soft whitelist having an entry corresponding to a first guest kernel page in a guest operating system (OS) in a hypervisor environment including a hypervisor. The method also includes receiving an access attempt to a second guest kernel page, and generating a page fault when the access attempt is made to the second guest kernel page. In addition, the method includes determining that the second guest kernel page does not correspond to the entry in the soft whitelist, and denying an execution of the second guest kernel page if the second guest kernel page does not correspond to the entry in the soft whitelist.

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Ghaziabad, India

Amit Dang