Research Saturday

← Research Saturday1 Aug · 24 min

The driver's seat to ransomware.

The driver's seat to ransomware.1 Aug24 min

This week, we are joined by Marcus Hutchins, Principal Threat Researcher at Expel, sharing their work on "Not very gentlemanly: Analyzing a zero-day exploit used by The Gentlemen ransomware to disable targets’ EDRs." Researchers examine how the Gentlemen ransomware group used a previously unknown zero-day vulnerability in a legacy Windows driver to disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools before deploying ransomware. The report details the group's advanced bring-your-own-vulnerable-driver (BYOVD) techniques, which bypass multiple Windows security protections to gain kernel-level access and terminate protected security software. It also outlines defensive measures organizations can take, including enabling Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC), virtualization-based security (VBS), and vulnerable driver blocklists to reduce the risk of similar attacks.

The research and executive brief can be found here:

Not very gentlemanly: Analyzing a zero-day exploit used by The Gentlemen ransomware to disable targets’ EDRs