Introducing Yara Toolkit
Your One Stop for All Things Yara!
I began this year by participating in the #100DaysofYara challenge. Yara is a powerful open-source tool that enables the creation of rules to identify files based on their characteristics. It can be used for various purposes including malware hunting, detection, and even forensic analysis.
This challenge is an excellent opportunity to practice, learn, and experiment with everything related to Yara. I am actively blogging about my daily experiences here and on my X account.
The beauty of this challenge lies in its versatility; it’s not just about writing a rule each day. It also allows you to independently explore, engage in side projects, or even develop your own tools, as long as they are related to Yara.
In addition to learning or honing a skill, you also have the opportunity to engage with the wider community.
With that said, let’s dive into the initial announcement! Introducing the Yara Toolkit — an online platform dedicated to all things Yara!
🛠️Yara Toolkit
As many of you may be aware, I’m a huge fan of giving back to the community. I’m convinced that sharing value with those around you is the best approach, and let’s be honest, it’s intellectually rewarding too.
As part of the challenge, I thought it would be interesting to create an online resource that combines various aspects of Yara.
In this part, I’ll discuss the features I’ve incorporated into the Yara toolkit and outline my future plans for it.
📝 The Yara Editor
I am not sure if there’s a free online Yara editor available that enables easy validation of your rules. There is certainly one on VirusTotal but I believe it requires an enterprise edition. There is also CyberChef though but the editor is very basic.
For this initial feature, I created a straightforward Yara editor where anyone can modify their rule and have an easy way to validate it.
It’s quite simple, yet pretty useful.
⚙️ The Yara Rule Generator
Writing a rule by beginning with a template is likely a common practice for many of us. For this second tool, I wanted to create a simple Yara generator that quickly helps you construct an initial template for your new rule. Of course, you can edit the generated rule; it’s not perfect, but it gives you a starting point.
I think there’s room for improvement, but for the basics, it works quite well.
🔎 The Yara Scanner
Scanning a file typically requires having malicious samples on your machine and Yara installed. Although most malware analysts have their environments set up and ready to use, there are instances where an online service for scanning files could be beneficial.
The Yara scanner offers exactly this: you can paste your rule into the editor, upload your sample, and then run the scan to check if your Yara rule matches with a specific file.
This can be helpful for analyzing a sample, as well as confirming that your file matches your rule.
🧬 The Strings Mutation
This tool provides an interface to specify a string and mutate it to hunt for variations of that string. I developed this tool based on the ‘cerebro’ script by Steve Miller.
🔗 How to Access
You can access the Yara Toolkit using this link:
Please note that this is an initial version, and it may contain bugs.
🤓 Future development
I have many ideas for the next part of the challenge. Additionally, I’ve set up a feedback form so you can help me improve the Yara Toolkit to better meet your needs.
Conclusion
In this blog, I’ve introduced the YaraToolkit, an online platform dedicated to all things Yara, which I created as part of my participation in the #100daysofYara challenge.
There are already several features on my roadmap, and I’m confident you’ll love them. I’m not revealing them today, but if you want to stay updated, I recommend following my #100daysofYara journey on Twitter.
Lastly, if you like the tool, please reshare it on social media and drop me a ❤ on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon.
That’s it! If you like this blog, you can share it and like it. You can follow me on Twitter @fr0gger_ for more stuff such as this one. ❤
You can also subscribe to my newsletter ‘The Intel Brief’ 💌
Consider becoming a Medium member if you appreciate my content and want to help me as a writer. It cost $5 per month and gives you unlimited access to Medium content. I’ll get a little commission if you sign up via my link and that will help supporting my community projects. Thanks!🤓
