Duqu Trojan – A Programming Mystery

Emil Protalinski reporting ... Kaspersky: Duqu Trojan uses 'unknown programming language':

The Duqu Trojan, referred to by some as Stuxnet 2.0, was partly written using an unknown programming language. The payload DLL, which communicates exclusively with the Command and Control (C&C) server so that the worm knows what to do once it has infected a system, has code that doesn’t resemble anything seen before. While secuirty researchers have worked out what the mystery code does, they aren’t sure about the syntax.

Some parts of it, including those for downloading and executing additional modules, were written in standard C++, but a big chunk of it was not. This particular section contains no references to any standard or user-written C++ functions, and may have been created by a different programming team. Security firm Kaspersky says the unusual code is unique to Duqu: many parts are directly borrowed from Stuxnet, but this one is new. The company has named it the Duqu Framework, and has noted that it is not written in C++, Objective C, Java, Python, Ada, Lua, and many other languages it checked. Unlike the rest of Duqu, it also wasn’t compiled with Microsoft’s Visual C++ 2008. All we know is that it’s object-oriented.

From Igor Soumenkov's original post … The Mystery of the Duqu Framework

The Duqu Framework: What was that?

After having performed countless hours of analysis, we are 100% confident that the Duqu Framework was not programmed with Visual C++. It is possible that its authors used an in-house framework to generate intermediary C code, or they used another completely different programming language.

We would like to make an appeal to the programming community and ask anyone who recognizes the framework, toolkit or the programming language that can generate similar code constructions, to contact us or drop us a comment in this blogpost. We are confident that with your help we can solve this deep mystery in the Duqu story.

and some of the comments:

As400tech

That code looks familiar
The code your referring to .. the unknown c++ looks like the older IBM compilers found in OS400 SYS38 and the oldest sys36.

The C++ code was used to write the tcp/ip stack for the operating system and all of the communications. The protocols used were the following x.21(async) all modes, Sync SDLC, x.25 Vbiss5 10 15 and 25. CICS. RSR232. This was a very small and powerful communications framework. The IBM system 36 had only 300MB hard drive and one megabyte of memory,the operating system came on diskettes.

SCooke

It's easier to figure this out if you consider vendor sourcing. The work was probably done by a government. And, whether the software was sourced through a US agency or whether a US agency itself was the creator, the net result is the same: you're looking for a major GSA-contracted firm who A) has clearance, B) has a compiler team, C) has a track record of providing similar product to the US government, and D) has a compiler codebase that looks kind of unfamiliar and not mainstream.

The likely suspects fitting that set of criteria are IBM, Microsoft, SAS and SAIC. All the others (remnant AT T, HP, remnant SGI... who am I forgetting?) incorporate a considerable amount of fairly recognizable shared compiler code in their offerings. Since you've disqualified Microsoft, my bet is on IBM.

I don't think it's SAS, because their compiler codebase is ancient. I don't think it's SAIC, because for them this would be a fairly difficult project. Three reasons why I think IBM.

First is that IBM has a library of bizarro options to select from. There's an internal HLASM-to-C frontend. There's all the CSet descendants. They've got research versions of damn near everything. (I'd try getting ahold of the ia32 version of CSet - probably hard to come by, but out there). They've also got a Windows source license, and if you were going to write a virus, that's always handy.

Second is that IBM has a history of doing projects like this. If there was a federal bid, they almost certainly would have been a bidder.

Third is that the project could have been run out of IBM Haifa. A number of the old IBM AV team probably either were there or ended up there, so it wouldn't be too far out of their wheelhouse. And if you wanted to build a state-sponsored virus, you'd almost certainly want to build it in a country who already has near-active hostilities with the intended target for the virus such that those acts of aggression don't become de facto acts of war for you.