malWASH: Washing Malware to Evade Dynamic Analysis

Hiding malware processes from fingerprinting is challenging. Current techniques like metamorphic algorithms and diversity generate different instances of a program, protecting it against static detection. Unfortunately, all existing techniques are prone to detection through behavioral analysis – a runtime analysis that records behavior (e.g., through system call invocations), and can detect executing diversified programs like malware.

We present malWASH, a dynamic diversification engine that executes an arbitrary program without being detected by dynamic analysis tools. Target programs are chopped into small components that are then executed in the context of other processes, hiding the behavior of the original program in a stream of benign behavior of a large number of processes. A scheduler connects these components and transfers state between the different processes. The execution of the benign processes is not impacted. Furthermore, malWASH ensures that the executing program remains persistent, complicating the removal process.