Ares - Python Botnet and Backdoor

Ares is made of two main programs:

• A Command aNd Control server, which is a Web interface to administer the agents
• An agent program, which is run on the compromised host, and ensures communication with the CNC

The Web interface can be run on any server running Python. You need to install the cherrypy package.
The client is a Python program meant to be compiled as a win32 executable using pyinstaller. It depends on the requests, pythoncom, pyhook python modules and on PIL (Python Imaging Library).

It currently supports:

• remote cmd.exe shell
• persistence
• file upload/download
• screenshot
• key logging

Installation

Server

To install the server, first create the sqlite database:
cd server/
python db_init.py
If no installed, install the cherrypy python package.
Then launch the server by issuing: python server.py
By default, the server listens on http://localhost:8080

Agent

The agent can be launched as a python script, but it is ultimately meant to be compiled as a win32 executable using pyinstaller.

First, install all the dependencies:

• requests
• pythoncom
• pyhook
• PIL

Then, configure agent/settings.py according to your needs:
SERVER_URL = URL of the CNC http server
BOT_ID = the (unique) name of the bot, leave empty to use hostname
DEBUG = should debug messages be printed to stdout ?
IDLE_TIME = time of inactivity before going in idle mode (the agent checks the CNC for commands far less often when idle).
REQUEST_INTERVAL = interval between each query to the CNC when active
Finally, use pyinstaller to compile the agent into a single exe file:

cd client/
pyinstaller --onefile --noconsole agent.py

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