Making A Virtual Machine Look Like Real Hardware To Malware

Making A Virtual Machine Look Like Real Hardware To Malware

Running suspicious software in a virtual machine seems like a basic precaution to figure out whether said software contains malicious code.

Unfortunately, it's generally rather easy to detect whether or not one's software runs inside a VM. A list of ways that a VirtualBox VM can be detected from inside the guest OS is provided by bRootForce.

There are obvious naming issues, such as the occurrence of the word 'VirtualBox' everywhere, as well as many more subtle ways to detect a VM.

A proof-of-concept 'malware' application called Al-Khaser is demonstrated, which can be used to verify one's anti-malware systems.

Al-Khaser has various uses, including trying to unleash a debugger on a piece of malware and running it inside a VM.

Running suspicious software in a virtual machine seems like a basic precaution.

Author's summary: Detecting virtual machines is easier than expected.

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Hackaday Hackaday — 2025-10-28

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