The LeechCore Physical Memory Acquisition Library:

The LeechCore Memory Acquisition Library focuses on Physical Memory Acquisition using various hardware and software based methods.

LeechCore provides API-based access to various hardware and software based memory sources via its C/C++, Python and C# APIs. Download the latest release of the library here on Github. If using Python it's recommended to install the leechcorepyc python pip package which is available for 64-bit Linux and Windows.

Use the LeechCore library locally or connect to, over the network, a LeechAgent to acquire physical memory or run commands remotely. The connection is by default compressed and secured with mutually authenticated kerberos - making it ideal in incident response when combined with analysis and live memory capture using Comae DumpIt or WinPMEM - even over high latency low-bandwidth connections!

The LeechCore library is used by PCILeech and The Memory Process File System (MemProcFS).

The LeechCore library is supported on 32/64-bit Windows (.dll), x64 and arm64 Linux (.so) and macOS. No executable exists for LeechCore - the library is always loaded by other applications using it - such as PCILeech and MemProcFS.

For detailed information about individual memory acquisition methods, the API and related examples please check out the LeechCore wiki.

Memory Acquisition Methods:

Software based memory aqusition methods:

Please find a summary of the supported software based memory acquisition methods listed below. Please note that the LeechAgent only provides a network connection to a remote LeechCore library. It's possible to use both hardware and software based memory acquisition once connected.

| Device | Type | Volatile | Write | Linux Support | Plugin | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- | -------- | ----- | ------------- | ------ | | RAW physical memory dump | File | No | No | Yes | No | | Full Microsoft Crash Dump | File | No | No | Yes | No | | Full ELF Core Dump | File | No | No | Yes | No | | QEMU | Live Memory | Yes | Yes | No | No | | VMware | Live Memory | Yes | Yes | No | No | | VMware memory save file | File | No | No | Yes | No | | TotalMeltdown | CVE-2018-1038 | Yes | Yes | No | No | | DumpIt /LIVEKD | Live Memory | Yes | No | No | No | | WinPMEM | Live Memory | Yes | No | No | No | | LiveKd | Live Memory | Yes | No | No | No | | LiveCloudKd | Live Memory | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | libmicrovmi | Live Memory | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Hyper-V Saved State | File | No | No | No | Yes | | LeechAgent* | Remote | | | No | No |

Hardware based memory aqusition methods:

Please find a summary of the supported hardware based memory acquisition methods listed below. All hardware based memory acquisition methods are supported on both Windows and Linux. | Device | Type | Interface | Speed | 64-bit memory access | PCIe TLP access | Project<br>Sponsor | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| ---- | --------- | ----- | -------------------- | --------------- | ------------------ | | ZDMA | FPGA | Thunderbolt3 | 1000MB/s | Yes | Yes | 💖 | | GBOX | FPGA | OCuLink | 400MB/s | Yes | Yes | 💖 | | LeetDMA | FPGA | USB-C | 190MB/s | Yes | Yes | 💖 | | CaptainDMA M2 | FPGA | USB-C | 190MB/s | Yes | Yes | 💖 | | CaptainDMA 4.1th | FPGA | USB-C | 190MB/s | Yes | Yes | 💖 | | CaptainDMA 75T | FPGA | USB-C | 200MB/s | Yes | Yes | 💖 | | CaptainDMA 100T | FPGA | USB-C | 220MB/s | Yes | Yes | 💖 | | AC701/FT601 | FPGA | USB3 | 190MB/s | Yes | Yes | | | USB3380-EVB | USB3380 | USB3 | 150MB/s | No | No | | | DMA patched HP iLO | BMC | TCP | 1MB/s | Yes | No | |

The LeechAgent Memory Acquisition and Analysis Agent:

The LeechAgent Memory Acquisition and Analysis Agent exists for Windows only. It allows users of the LeechCore library (PCILeech and MemProcFS) to connect to remotely installed LeechAgents over the network. The connection is secured, by default, with mutually authenticated encrypted kerberos.

Once connected physical memory may be acquired over the secure compressed connection. Memory analysis scripts, written in Python, may also be submitted for remote processing by the LeechAgent.

The LeechAgent authenticates all incoming connections against membership in the Local Administrators group. The clients must also authenticate the agent itself against the SPN used by the agent - please check the Application Event Log for information about the SPN and also successful authentication events against the agent.

There is also a possibility to run the LeechAgent in interactive mode (as a normal program). If run in interactive mode a user may also start the LeechAgent in "insecure" mode - which means no authentication or logging at all.

The LeechAgent listens on the port tcp/28473 - please ensure network connectivity for this port in the firewall. Also, if doing live capture ensure that LeechAgent (if running in interactive mode) is started as an administrator.

For more information please check the LeechCore wiki and the blog entry about remote live memory capture with the LeechAgent.

The videos below shows the process of installing the LeechAgent to a remote computer, connecting to it with MemProcFS to analyze and dump the memory while also connecting to it in parallel with PCILecch to submit a Python memory analysis script that make use of the MemProcFS API to analyze the remote CPU page tables for rwx-sections.

<p align="center"><img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wiki/ufrisk/LeechCore/resources/agent-anim.gif"/></p>

Examples:

Installing the LeechAgent on the local system (run as elevated administrator)'. Please ensure that the LeechAgent.exe is on the local C: drive before installing the agent service. Please also ensure that dependencies such as required .dll and/or .sys files (and optional Python sub-subfolder) are put in the same directory as the LeechAgent before running the install command.

• LeechAgent.exe -install

Installing the LeechAgent on a remote system (or on the local system) in the Program Files\LeechAgent folder. An Actice Directory environment with remote access to the Service Manager of the target system is required. For additional information see the wiki entry about installing LeechAgent.

• LeechAgent.exe -remoteinstall <remotecomputer.contoso.com>

Uninstall an existing, locally installed, LeechAgent. The agent service will be uninstalled but any files will remain.

• LeechAgent.exe -uninstall

Uninstall a LeechAgent from a remote system and delete the Program Files\LeechAgent folder.

• `LeechAgent.exe -remoteuninstall <rem