Cobalt Strike Malleable C2 Design and Reference Guide

This project is intended to serve as reference when designing Cobalt Strike Malleable C2 profiles.

Always verify your profile with ./c2lint [/path/to/my.profile] prior to use!

Malleable C2 Profile Guidance

The following dive deeper into the understanding of Malleable C2

• MalleableExplained.md : Quick profile reference guide
• ThreatExpress - A Deep Dive into Cobalt Strike Malleable C2 : Orignal blog post the where the jquery reference profile was created
• Understanding Cobalt Strike Profiles : Revised (current) blog on profile guidance
• Random Profile Generator : Profile generator with more examples and options for settings

Changelog

20231017 - Updated for CS 4.9

• Added 4.9 reference profile
• Updated MalleableExplained.md with new 4.9 options
  • post-ex.cleanup
  • .http-beacon.library

20230801 - Updated for CS 4.8

• Added 4.8 reference profile
• Updated MalleableExplained.md with new 4.8 options
  • stage.syscall_method

20221022 - Updated for CS 4.7

• Added 4.7 reference profile
• Updated MalleableExplained.md with 4.7 considerations

20220421 - Updated for CS 4.6

• Added 4.6 reference profile
• No more '1MB' limit
  • Add section "Task and Proxy Max Size" with new options
    • set tasks_max_size "1048576";
    • set tasks_proxy_max_size "921600";
    • set tasks_dns_proxy_max_size "71680";
  • Additional Considerations for the 'task_' Settings
• Updated MalleableExplained.md with 4.6 considerations

202112 - Updated for CS 4.5

• Added 4.5 reference profile
• Updated MalleableExplained.md with 4.5 considerations

202108 - Added MalleableExplained.md

• Reference from Andy Gill (@ZephrFish)
• Reference blog: https://blog.zsec.uk/cobalt-strike-profiles/

202103 - Add CS 4.3 Reference Profile

• Add latest Malleable C2 profile options for Cobalt Strike 4.3
• Moved dns settings to new dns-beacon section
• 4.3 Additions
  • dns-beacon
    • beacon
    • get_A
    • get_AAAA
    • get_TXT
    • put_metadata
    • put_output
    • ns_response
  • http-config
    • block_useragents

202011 - Add CS 4.2 Reference Profile

• Add latest MalleablePE and MalleableC2 options for Cobalt Strike 4.1 and 4.2
• 4.1 Additions: tcp_frame_header, smb_frame_header, ssh_banner
• 4.2 Additions:
  • global
    • data_jitter
    • headers_remove
    • ssh_pipename
  • postex
    • pipename
    • thread_hint
    • keylogger
  • stage
    • allocator
    • magic_mz_86|magic_mz_64
    • magic_pe

202003 - CS 4.0 Reference Profile

• Add CS4.0 reference profile of available malleable C2 options
• Remove deprecated features (amsi_disable, disable for process injection techniques, etc)

Authors

• @joevest
• @001SPARTaN
• @andrewchiles
• @Charles-Foster-Kane

License

This project and all individual scripts are under the GNU GPL v3.0 license.