writing an application which can delete itself

[white scorpion]

Hi all,

i'm writing a crackme and i would like to add the option to remove itself if the user enters the wrong password too many times.

well, the crackme itself isn't that hard to write, but the piece of code to let the program delete itself is...

i've been thinking about using the windows installer (if i knew how),
or perhaps there might be some API's which can be of use.


any ideas?

Thanks in advance,


Kind regards

White Scorpion

[Crudd]

Google has a few solutions for you: http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/W-P/win32/arti...icle.php/c4533/
and http://www.windevnet.com/documents/win0312d/ could be helpful.
I dont see the point of making the .exe delete itself. The cracker will just d/l it again if he needs/wants to. Seems like alot of work for little payoff.
Crudd [RET]

[Devine9]

Installers do this all the time..

[ ] delete setup file after install

could pass the pid to a seperate process which watches for exit, then delete.. or just wait a couple seconds but then you risk race conditions.

-DR.

[white scorpion]

thanks for your answers and i did google

well, here's what i came up with:

commd * * * db "cmd.exe /c del ",0



processinfo PROCESS_INFORMATION <>

startup * * STARTUPINFO * * * * <>



clbuff * * *db 500 dup (?)



TotalCleanUp PROC


;remove the program itself
;-------------------------



invoke GetCommandLine

mov ComLine,eax



invoke lstrcpy,addr clbuff,addr commd

invoke lstrcat,addr clbuff,ComLine

mov startup.wShowWindow,SW_HIDE

invoke CreateProcess,NULL,addr clbuff,NULL,NULL,FALSE,0,NULL,NULL,addr startup,addr processinfo



invoke ExitProcess,0



TotalCleanUp ENDP

btw, here's the same code in C for those who do not understand ASM:

#include <stdio.h>

#include <windows.h>

#include <strings.h>



int main(void)

{

 * *char buffer[500]="cmd.exe /c del ";

 * *STARTUPINFO si;

 * *PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;



 * *ZeroMemory( &si, sizeof(si) );

 * *si.cb = sizeof(si);

 * *ZeroMemory( &pi, sizeof(pi) );



 * *strcat(buffer,GetCommandLine());

 * *CreateProcess(NULL,buffer,NULL,NULL,FALSE,0,NULL,NULL,&si,&pi);

 * *return 0;

 * *

}

so my problem is solved

i want to include it to prevent brute forcing. if i let the program run 100 times before this code is executed the program can not be bruteforced without first RE'ing it by removing this code

thanks for the help tho

[sna]

Hi.

Recall that the command promt is not brought up by cmd.exe under Windows 95/98/ME.
There's an environment variable named COMSPEC that specifes the command-interpreter in use.

Regards, sna

[white scorpion]

yes i i know, perhaps i should use command.com instead

[sna]

GetEnvironmentVariable()

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....entvariable.asp

Regards, sna

[white scorpion]

yes i know of the API, but it doesn't really matter since command.com is available in all versions of windows . so why write a lot of extra code when you can just use command.com ?

[sna]

so why write a lot of extra code when you can just use command.com ?

Because command.com is executed inside a virtual machine. It's just wrong damn it!

Regards, sna