“According to the research published by Hackmosphere, the technique works by avoiding the conventional execution path where applications call Windows API functions through libraries like kernel32.dll, which then forwards requests to ntdll.dll before making the actual system call to the kernel.”
Additional Information:
https://www.hackmosphere.fr/bypass-windows-defender-antivirus-2025-part-1/
https://www.hackmosphere.fr/bypass-windows-defender-antivirus-2025-part-2/
They also suggest organizations deploy additional security layers beyond Windows Defender, particularly solutions that can monitor behavior at the kernel level.
Anything like this for the typical home user?
Sure, bring back Crowdstrike, that went well…
Btw I wasn’t aware XOR was encrytion…
XOR cleartext once with a key you get ciphertext. XOR the ciphertext with the same key you get the original cleartext. At its core this is the way the old DES cipher works.
A bit of useful trivia: If you XOR any number with itself, you get all zeros. You can see this in practice when an assembly programmer XOR’s a register with itself to clear it out.
That’s how it was done in the old days to save a few cycles in Z80 assembly. XOR A instead of LD A, 0.
I use that daily in my accelerator work.
Once you learn the trick, you just use it naturally.
