A wrapper around the yara-python project the provides the following capabilities.
- Change tracking of yara files, directories of yara files, or git repositories of yara files.
- File and data scanning with the ability to filter based on meta data matching.
- Distributed scanning processes that maximize the use of multi-core systems.
- Command line interface.
Loading a single yara file and then scanning data.
from pprint import pprint
from yara_scanner import YaraScanner
scanner = YaraScanner()
# tells the scanner to start tracking this yara file
scanner.track_yara_file('my_rules.yar')
scanner.load_rules()
if scanner.scan('/path/to/scan_target.txt'):
pprint(scanner.scan_results)
# this returns True if any tracked yara files have changed
if scanner.check_rules():
scanner.load_rules()pip install yara-scannergit clone https://github.com/ace-ecosystem/yara_scanner
cd yara_scanner
pip install -r requirements.txt
The default global pattern for loading rules is
/opt/signatures/*/*.yar
You can use the -d option to specified a different default location, or, you can use the -y, -Y, -G, and -z options to specify specific locations.
usage: scan [-h] [-r] [--from-stdin] [-v] [-j] [-t] [--test-rule TEST_RULE] [--test-strings] [--test-strings-if] [--test-strings-threshold TEST_STRINGS_THRESHOLD] [--test-data TEST_DATA] [--csv CSV]
[--performance-csv PERFORMANCE_CSV] [--failure-csv FAILURE_CSV] [--string-performance-csv STRING_PERFORMANCE_CSV] [--string-failure-csv STRING_FAILURE_CSV] [-y YARA_RULES] [-Y YARA_DIRS] [-G YARA_REPOS]
[-z COMPILED_YARA_RULES] [-c] [-C COMPILE_TO] [-b BLACKLISTED_RULES] [-B BLACKLISTED_RULES_PATH] [-a] [--auto-compiled-rules-dir AUTO_COMPILED_RULES_DIR] [-d SIGNATURE_DIR]
[PATHS [PATHS ...]]
Scan the given file with yara using all available rulesets.
positional arguments:
PATHS One or more files or directories to scan with yara.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-r, --recursive Recursively scan directories.
--from-stdin Read the list of files to scan from stdin.
-v, --verbose Increase verbosity. Can specify multiple times for more verbose output
-j, --dump-json Dump JSON details of matches. Otherwise just list the rules that hit.
-t, --test Test each yara file separately against different types of buffers for performance issues.
--test-rule TEST_RULE
Tests a specific rule.
--test-strings Tests the performance all the strings individually in the selected yara rules.
--test-strings-if Tests the performance all the strings individually in rules that take longer than N seconds to complete or rules that fail for any reason.
--test-strings-threshold TEST_STRINGS_THRESHOLD
The threshold (in seconds) for the --test-strings-if option. Defaults to 0.1 seconds.
--test-data TEST_DATA
Use the given file as the buffer of random data for the test data.
--csv CSV Write performance results to the given CSV file.
--performance-csv PERFORMANCE_CSV
Write the performance results of string testing to the given csv formatted file. Defaults to stdout.
--failure-csv FAILURE_CSV
Write the failure results of string testing to the given csv formatted file. Defaults to stdout.
--string-performance-csv STRING_PERFORMANCE_CSV
Write the performance results of string testing to the given csv formatted file. Defaults to stdout.
--string-failure-csv STRING_FAILURE_CSV
Write the failure results of string testing to the given csv formatted file. Defaults to stdout.
-y YARA_RULES, --yara-rules YARA_RULES
One yara rule to load. You can specify more than one of these.
-Y YARA_DIRS, --yara-dirs YARA_DIRS
One directory containing yara rules to load. You can specify more than one of these.
-G YARA_REPOS, --yara-repos YARA_REPOS
One directory that is a git repository that contains yara rules to load. You can specify more than one of these.
-z COMPILED_YARA_RULES, --compiled-yara-rules COMPILED_YARA_RULES
Load compiled yara rules from the specified files. This option cannot be combined with -y, -Y, or -G
-c, --compile-only Compile the rules and exit.
-C COMPILE_TO, --compile-to COMPILE_TO
Compile the rules into the given file path.
-b BLACKLISTED_RULES, --blacklist BLACKLISTED_RULES
A rule to blacklist (remove from the results.) You can specify more than one of these options.
-B BLACKLISTED_RULES_PATH, --blacklist-path BLACKLISTED_RULES_PATH
Path to a file that contains a list of rules to blacklist, one per line.
-a, --auto-compile-rules
Automatically saved the compiled yara rules to disk. Automatically loads pre-compiled rules based on MD5 hash of rule content.
--auto-compiled-rules-dir AUTO_COMPILED_RULES_DIR
Specifies the directory to use to store automatically compiled yara rules. Defaults to the system temp dir.
-d SIGNATURE_DIR, --signature-dir SIGNATURE_DIR
DEPRECATED: Use a different signature directory than the default.
scan a single file using the default rules
scan ms0day.ppsxscan a single file and generate JSON output with default rules
scan -j ms0day.ppsx
scan -j ms0day.ppsx | json_ppscan multiple files with default rules
scan file1 file2 file3scan all files in a directory and all sub-directories with default rules
scan -r dirscan a list of files passed in on standard input with default rules
find dridex -type f | scan --from-stdinscan a single file with a single yara rule
scan -y myrule.yar target_filescan a single file with all rules in a given directory
scan -Y my_rule_dir target_filecheck the syntax of all the rules in a given directory
scan -c -Y my_rule_dirThe scan tool also supports filtering out specific rules before they are loaded. These are specified by using the -b and -B command line options. This is useful for tuning open source repositories of yara rules.
You can specify when a rule match should (or should not) be reported. This allows you to prevent some rules from matching against certain kinds of files, or for a rule to be matched against only one specific file.
The rules are specified as metadata name and value pairs. (example rule syntax)
rule html_rule: odd html
{
meta:
mime_type = "text/html"
strings:
...
condition:
...
}file_ext | Matches everything past the first period in the file name.
file_name | Matches the full name of the file (not including the path.)
full_path | Matches against the full path of the file, if one was specified.
mime_type | Matches against the output of file -b --mime-type.
The value of the metadata variable is a comma separated list of values to match. By default the library matches as is, but special modifiers can be used to perform sub string matching and regular expressions. Special modifiers are applied to all comma separated values in the string.
! | negation | Negates the match. This can be placed before other modifiers.
sub: | sub-search | Match if this string appears anywhere.
re: | regex | Match if the regular expression is satisfied.
Values can be a comma separated list of values, regardless of the modifiers. Therefor, commas cannot be used in the patterns.
Only match files the end with the .exe extension.
file_ext = "exe"
Only match files that end with .exe, .dll or .ocx extension.
file_ext = "exe, dll, ocx"
Only match files that do not end with .exe, .dll or .ocx extension.
file_ext = "!exe, dll, ocx"
Only matches files that do not end with .bmp.
file_ext = "!bmp"
Only match files identified as PDF despite the file name.
mime_type = "application/pdf"
Only match files not identified as images.
mime_type = "!sub:image/"
Only match files that look like an invoice phish.
file_name = "re:invoice[0-9]+\\.doc$"
Only match files in a subdirectory called /ole.
full_path = "sub:/ole/"
It's often useful to know not only what rules have poor performance, but also what strings inside of those rules are causing the issue. This library has special support for this.
Each yara rule is extracted and tested on its own against the following sets of data.
- random data (either a 1MB random sequence of bytes or the contents of a file specified by the
--test-dataoption.) - repeating byte patterns (1MB of repeating bytes of the same value.)
In total there are 256 buffers to test against for each test (one random and 255 repeating byte buffers.)
You can optionally also extract each regular expression from specified rules and test them by themselves against the same buffers. This allows you to determine which string is causing the issue.
Testing all rules but not strings.
scan -tTesting all rules and the strings of rules that take longer than 0.1 seconds to scan any buffer.
scan -t --test-strings-if --test-strings-threshold 0.1Test a specific rule and all the strings inside of it.
scan -t --test-rule MyYaraRule --test-stringsTest all rules against the file sample.dat.
scan -t --test-data sample.datThe output of the test can be saved to CSV files using the following options.
--csv saves all performance data to the given file.
--performance-csv saves the performance data of entire yara files.
--failure-csv saves any rules that fail under performance testing.
--string-performance-csv saves the performance data of individual yara strings.
--string-failure-csv save any strings that fail under performance testing.
Note that if you do not specify these options the output is sent to standard out.
Performance data has the following format.
buffer_name, file_path, rule_name, total_seconds
buffer_name a description of the buffer that was used by the test, either random for random (or file) data, or chr(n) where n is the byte that was used for the buffer.
file_path the path to the file that contains the yara rule.
rule_name the name of the yara rule.
total_seconds the total amount of time it took the yara rule to scan the given buffer.
String performance data is similar but contains two additional fields.
buffer_name, file_path, rule_name, string_name, result_count, total_seconds
string_name is the name of the string inside the yara rule.
result_count is the total number of times the string matched inside the buffer.
Error data has a format that is similar to the performance data but inside of total_seconds you will see the error message that occurred when the given yara rule or string was used to scan the given buffer.
If you see "Error 30" it means your rule, or strings inside of a rule, matched too many times.
