RootKit Hook Analyzer

Check for active kernel rootkits on your system

version 3.00 allows you to test system hook quality



Please note: support and development of this product have been discontinued. Functionality of this product can be found in SanityCheck.

RootKit Hook Analyzer is a security tool which will check if there are any rootkits installed on your computer which hook the kernel system services. Kernel RootKit Hooks are installed modules which intercept the principal system services that all programs and the operating system rely on. If any of these system services are intercepted and modified it means that there is a possibility that the safety of your system is at risk and that spyware, viruses or malware are active.

Are kernel hooks always bad ?

Kernel hooks are out of fashion these days and not officially documented and considered deprecated by Microsoft. The pioneering heroes of the old days who discovered how to actually implement them have all adopted the new fashion of advising against using kernel hooks as a programming practice. Often kernel hooks are unnecessary because there are documented ways which allow a programmer to achieve his goal. However in a lot of system tools such as monitoring and antivirus software, kernel hooks are the only available technique to get the difficult job done and thus an unavoidable necessary evil. Important is that if your kernel system services are hooked that you can find out which is the responsible software that makes use of these techniques. Inspired by all the discussions going on about the Sony CD protection rootkit, we have developed the RootKit Hook Analyzer.




RootKit Hook Analyzer will tell you what kernel hooks are active on your system. It displays all kernel system services along with their base addresses, responsible modules as well as product names companies and module descriptions. If no hooks are active on your system it means that all system services are handled by NTOSKRNL.EXE, the principal base component of most Windows operating systems which is developed by Microsoft. All you have to do to find out what kernel hooks are installed on your system is press the Analyze button at the bottom of the screen. RootKit Hook Analyzer also allows you to view installed system modules and drivers with their base addresses as well as file and product information as well as the responsible companies.


Hook Quality Test

If any hooks have been found on your computer system and you find they are not malware but part of a legitimate product, RootKit Hook Analyzer allows you to test if the hooks have been properly implemented and do proper parameter checking.

On a clean Windows installation, as soon as any application calls a system service from user mode, its parameters will be checked for validity by the function which executes in kernel mode. This means that if the application passes bogus parameters, it receives an error code and does not cause the computer to crash. However if the system service is hooked and the hooked function does not do proper parameter checking it can crash the system. One of the main causes for computer crashes (blue screens and resets) these days is because legitimate programs (very often security products) which do system call hooking do not properly validate their parameters.

With this test, you can check if the software you have installed does not suffer from this problem. If your computer resets during this test it means the software you have installed is at fault. This does not mean it is exposing rootkits or malware to your system but it means that it is compromising your systems stability and probably causing your computer to reset or blue screen during normal computer operation as well. If this test fails you should contact the author/vendor of the product which is failing and notify him on the issue so he can hopefully set things straight and release an update.


Free Download

RootKit Hook Analyzer is for free and runs on Windows Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000 (x86 editions only).
Note: support for Windows x64 editions has been temporarily retracted and will be reintroduced in a future release.

Click here to download Resplendence RootKit Hook Analyzer.

We will release a commercial version of the RootKit Hook Analyzer as part of a future release of our advanced antivirus software Principal AntiVirus.



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