Defeating HyperUnpackMe2 With an IDA Processor Module

This article is about breaking modern executable protectors. The target, a crackme known as HyperUnpackMe2, is modern in the sense that it does not follow the standard packer model of yesteryear wherein the contents of the executable in memory, minus the import information, are eventually restored to their original forms.

Modern protectors mutilate the original code section, use virtual machines operating upon polymorphic bytecode languages to slow reverse engineering, and take active measures to frustrate attempts to dump the process. Meanwhile, the complexity of the import protections and the amount of anti-debugging measures has steadily increased.

This article dissects such a protector and offers a static unpacker through the use of an IDA processor module and a custom plugin. The commented IDB files and the processor module source code are included. In addition, an appendix covers IDA processor module construction. In short, this article is an exercise in overkill.

NOTE: all code snippets beginning with "ROM:" come from the disassembled VM code; all other snippets come from the protected binary.

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