Cuckoo SandBox on AWS

By Oran Kabarity @ Check Point Software Technologies

Overview

The project is an extension to Cuckoo Sandbox open source project; it adds support to AWS cloud functionalities and enables running emulations on auto-scaling infrastructure.

This blog post explains in detail the theory and functionality of Cuckoo Sandbox over AWS cloud.
https://research.checkpoint.com/cuckoo-system-on-aws/

Installation instructions - Nest Setup

• Launch a Linux machine (possible via AWS marketplace)

• Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/CheckPointSW/Cuckoo-AWS

• Setup and activate virtual environment

virtualenv venv
. venv/bin/activate

• Install boto3 library

pip install boto3

• Obtain the matching monitoring binaries from the community repository

python stuff/monitor.py

• Install cuckoo as DEV mode

python setup.py sdist develop

• Run cuckoo with debug output

cuckoo –d

• The first run should build the configuration files and save them in some location. The location is shown in the output of the run (should contain “.cuckoo” library). It is strongly advised to remember that location for the following steps and for future usages

• Edit ".cuckoo/conf/cuckoo.conf"

machinery = aws
[resultserver] ip = <the private IP of this machine>

• Edit ".cuckoo/conf/aws.conf" according to the instructions in the file

• Run

cuckoo 

Image and snapshot setup

• Cuckoo are recommending to run guest VMs on 64-bit Windows 7. You can import your regular VM to AMI using this manual. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vm-import/latest/userguide/vmimport-image-import.html

• Launch a new Windows 7 instance to setup the guest

• Install Python and Pillow library https://cuckoo.sh/docs/installation/guest/requirements.html

• Disable Windows Firewall and the Automatic Updates https://cuckoo.sh/docs/installation/guest/network.html

• Install Cuckoo agent https://cuckoo.sh/docs/installation/guest/agent.html

• For malware network analysis, each guest should have the Nest as their default route

• Save this instace as a new image(AMI). This action will also create a new snapshot(snapshot-id can be found under the AMI details)

Problems and solutions

• In case that the installation fails or if the following exception appears ” 'module' object has no attribute 'get_installed_distributions' ”, try downgrading pip:

pip install --force-reinstall pip==9.0.3

• In case of various issues during the build of the configuration files, try re-generating the configuration. Delete the whole “.cuckoo” folder and run the following:

cuckoo –d 

Changes from official Cuckoo repository

In order to make it compatible with AWS we made the following changes.

• Added a new machinery (at cuckoo/machinery/aws.py)

• Added a new config template (at cuckoo/private/cwd/conf/aws.conf)

• Modified the config object (at cuckoo/common/config.py) in a way that will support the new configuration file.