Windows10 - Custom Kernel Signers

1. What is Custom Kernel Signers?

We know that Windows10 has strict requirements for kernel mode driver. One of the requirements is that drivers must be signed by a EV certificate that Microsoft trusts. What's more start from 1607, new drivers must be submitted to Windows Hardware Portal to get signed by Microsoft. For a driver signed by a self-signed certificate, without enabling TestSigning mode, Windows10 still refuses to load it even the self-signed certificate was installed into Windows Certificate Store(certlm.msc or certmgr.msc). That means Windows10 has a independent certificate store for kernel mode driver.

Custom Kernel Signers(CKS) is a product policy supported by Windows10(may be from 1703). The full product policy name is CodeIntegrity-AllowConfigurablePolicy-CustomKernelSigners. It allows users to decide what certificates is trusted or denied in kernel. By the way, this policy may require another policy, CodeIntegrity-AllowConfigurablePolicy, enable.

Generally, CKS is disabled by default on any edtions of Windows10 except Windows10 China Government Edition.

If a Windows10 PC meets the following conditions:

The product policy CodeIntegrity-AllowConfigurablePolicy-CustomKernelSigners is enabled. (May be CodeIntegrity-AllowConfigurablePolicy is also required.)
SecureBoot is enabled.

one can add a certificate to kernel certificate store if he owns the PC's UEFI Platform Key so that he can lanuch any drivers signed by the certificate on that PC.

If you are interested in looking for other product policies, you can see this.

2. How to enable this feature?

2.1 Prerequisites

You must have administrator privilege.
You need a temporary environment whose OS is Windows10 Enterprise or Education.

Why? Because you need it to execute ConvertFrom-CIPolicy in Powershell which cannot be done in other editions of Windows10.
You are able to set UEFI Platform Key.

2.2 Create certificates and set Platform Key(PK)

Please follow this to create certificates. After that you will get following files:

// self-signed root CA certificate
localhost-root-ca.der
localhost-root-ca.pfx

// kernel mode certificate issued by self-signed root CA
localhost-km.der
localhost-km.pfx

// UEFI Platform Key certificate issued by self-signed root CA
localhost-pk.der
localhost-pk.pfx

As for how to set PK in UEFI firmware, please do it yourself because different UEFI firmware has different methods. Here, I only tell you how to do it in VMware.

2.2.1 Set PK in VMware

If your VMware virtual machine's name is TestVM and your vm has SecureBoot, there would be two files under your vm's folder: TestVM.nvram and TestVM.vmx. You can set PK by the following:

Close your vm.
Delete TestVM.nvram. This would reset your vm's UEFI settings next time your vm starts.
Open TestVM.vmx by a text editor and append the following two lines:
```
uefi.allowAuthBypass = "TRUE"
uefi.secureBoot.PKDefault.file0 = "localhost-pk.der"
```
The first line allows you manage SecureBoot keys in UEFI firmware.

The second line will make localhost-pk.der in vm's folder as default UEFI PK. If localhost-pk.der is not in vm's folder, please specify a full path.

Then start TestVM and your PK has been set.

2.3 Build kernel code-sign certificate rules

Run Powershell as administrator in Windows10 Enterprise/Education edition.

Use New-CIPolicy to create new CI (Code Integrity) policy. Please make sure that the OS is not affected with any malware.
```
New-CIPolicy -FilePath SiPolicy.xml -Level RootCertificate -ScanPath C:\windows\System32\
```
It will scan the entire System32 folder and take some time. If you do not want to scan, you can use SiPolicy.xml I prepared.

Use Add-SignerRule to add our own kernel code-sign certificate to SiPolicy.xml.

Add-SignerRule -FilePath .\SiPolicy.xml -CertificatePath .\localhost-km.der -Kernel

Use ConvertFrom-CIPolicy to serialize SiPolicy.xml and get binary file SiPolicy.bin

ConvertFrom-CIPolicy -XmlFilePath .\SiPolicy.xml -BinaryFilePath .\SiPolicy.bin

Now our policy rules has been built. The newly-generated file can be applied to any editions of Windows10 once it is signed by PK certificate. From now on, we don't need Windows10 Enterprise/Education edition.

2.4 Sign policy rules and apply policy rules

For SiPolicy.bin, we should use PK certificate to sign it. If you have Windows SDK, you can sign it by signtool.
```
signtool sign /fd sha256 /p7co 1.3.6.1.4.1.311.79.1 /p7 . /f .\localhost-pk.pfx /p <password of localhost-pk.pfx> SiPolicy.bin
```
Please fill <password of localhost-pk.pfx> with password of your localhost-pk.pfx.

Then you will get SiPolicy.bin.p7 at current directory.

Rename SiPolicy.bin.p7 to SiPolicy.p7b and copy SiPolicy.p7b to EFI\Microsoft\Boot\

# run powershell as administrator
mv .\SiPolicy.bin.p7 .\SiPolicy.p7b
mountvol x: /s
cp .\SiPolicy.p7b X:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\

2.5 Enable CustomKernelSigners

The variable that controls CKS enable or not is stored in ProductPolicy value whose key path is HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ProductOptions.

Although administrators can modify this value, the value will be reset immediately once modified. This is because this value is just a mapping of a varialbe in kernel once kernel is initialized. The only way to modify the variable is to call ExUpdateLicenseData. However, this API could only be called in kernel mode or indirectly called by calling NtQuerySystemInformation with SystemPolicyInformation. Unfortunately, the latter way succeeds only when caller is a protected process.

So we could only modify it when kernel has not finished initialization. Do we have a chance? Yes, Windows Setup Mode can give us a chance.

I've built a program to help us enable CKS. The code in under EnableCustomKernelSigners folder and the binary executable file EnableCKS.exe can be downloaded on release page. Of course, you can build it with your own.

Double click EnableCKS.exe and you can see

[+] Succeeded to open "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup".
[+] Succeeded to set "CmdLine" value.
[+] Succeeded to set "SetupType" value.

Reboot is required. Are you ready to reboot? [y/N]

Type y to reboot. Then system will enter Setup Mode. EnableCKS.exe will run automaticly and enable the following two policy

CodeIntegrity-AllowConfigurablePolicy
CodeIntegrity-AllowConfigurablePolicy-CustomKernelSigners

Finally, system will reboot again and go back to normal mode.

2.6 Persist CustomKernelSigners

Now you should be able to load drivers signed by localhost-km.pfx. But wait for a minute. Within 10 minutes, CKS will be reset to disable by sppsvc except when you have Windows10 China Government Edition. Don't worry, it takes effect only next time system starts up.

So we have to load a driver to call ExUpdateLicenseData continuously to persist CKS. I've built a driver named ckspdrv.sys which can be downloaded on release page. The code is in CustomKernelSignersPersistent folder.

ckspdrv.sys is not signed. You must sign it with localhost-km.pfx so that it can be loaded into kernel.

signtool sign /fd sha256 /ac .\localhost-root-ca.der /f .\localhost-km.pfx /p <password of localhost-km.pfx> /tr http://sha256timestamp.ws.symantec.com/sha256/timestamp ckspdrv.sys

Please fill <password of localhost-km.pfx> with password of your localhost-km.pfx.

Then move ckspdrv.sys to c:\windows\system32\drivers and run cmd as administrator:

sc create ckspdrv binpath=%windir%\system32\drivers\ckspdrv.sys type=kernel start=auto error=normal
sc start ckspdrv

If nothing wrong, ckspdrv.sys will be loaded successfully, which also confirms that our policy rules have take effect.

Now you can load any driver signed by localhost-km.pfx. Have fun and enjoy~

tchigher / windows10-customkernelsigners Goto Github PK