Publications

Fill 4

ERNW White Paper 71

Analysis of Anti-Virus Software Quarantine Files

Anti-virus software (AV software) is a type of computer software that tries to identify malicious software and to prevent it from running. Since anti-virus software may wrongfully identify harmless files as malicious (false positives), AV software makes use of quarantining files. If a file is put into quarantine by an AV software, the AV software removes the original suspected malicious file and stores a modified obfuscated version in another location.

In this paper, the quarantine files of different AV software solutions were analyzed. The encryption and obfuscation methods were documented (including encryption keys) and parsers created using Kaitai Struct.



Newsletter sign up

Get the latest news about technical topics within the IT-Security Community and a lot of special insights. Sign up now for our Newsletter at ernw.de:


Talks and Conferences arround the world


April 16, 2024

BSI Publishes Windows 10 SiSyPHuS Reports: Application Compatibility Infrastructure, Microsoft Defender Antivirus ETW Usage and Device Setup Manager Service

The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI – Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) has published several papers ERNW created as part of the long-term SiSyPHuS Win10-Project. This project focuses on system analysis of selected parts of the Windows 10 operating system performed by ERNW.

April 10, 2024

Breaking UPS Parcel Tracking

Today, we describe our findings at United Parcel Service of America, Inc. (UPS), another German parcel market player, and the corresponding vulnerabilities’ disclosure process.

April 03, 2024

I know what you ordered last summer @ Winterkongress 2024

Dennis and I already published blog posts about our research project dealing with vulnerabilities in parcel tracking implementations at DHL and DPD. At the Winterkongress (winter congress) in Winterthur, Switzerland, we had the great opportunity to give a talk about the matter. The talk was recorded and can be watched here. DigiGes held the Winterkongress, […]

February 06, 2024

Considerations on AI-Security – Part I: Introduction and Nondeterminism

Hey there! This is the first blog post in a series about issues we think are currently relevant in the field of AI-Security. The intention is not to get full coverage of the topic, but to point out things that seem practical and relevant. We will base some of our statements on lab setups and […]

October 20, 2023

Student Project – Audit Framework

Introduction In 2021, ERNW collaborated with Hochschule Mannheim for their CEP (Cyber Security Entwicklungsprojekt) to build an auditing framework for testing operating system configurations against security procedures. This project is part of the education program of the university to give the students the chance to utilize the knowledge gained throughout the first semesters in a […]

ERNW Research ERNW Research articles on our company blog