Malware: Fighting Malicious Code

Kernel Manipulation Impact

Neo: This isn't real…

Morpheus: What is “real”? How do you define “real”? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then "real" is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain…

—Dialogue from the movie The Matrix, 1999

What happens if some bad guy starts manipulating the kernel itself? Because the kernel is all about control, by modifying the kernel, an attacker can change the system in a fundamental way. To apply changes to the kernel, the attacker first requires superuser privileges on the machine. To manipulate the kernel, root-level access is needed on UNIX machines, and administrator or system access is required on Windows systems. Once installed, a kernel-mode ...