Covert-Tube : Youtube As Covert-Channel – Control Systems Remotely And Execute Commands By Uploading Videos To Youtube

Covert-Tube is a program to control systems remotely by uploading videos to Youtube using Python to create the videos and the listener, emulating some malware I was reading about. It allows to create videos with frames formed of simple text, QR codes with cleartext or QR codes using AES encryption.

Create A Video

The videos can be created using generate_video.py: enter the commands and generate the video writing “exit”. The video generated is called by default output.avi (can be updated in config.py):

python3 generate_video.py

Run the listener and upload the video to Youtube

python3 main.py

The listener will check the Youtube channel every 300 seconds by default (can be updated in config.py). First the video is uploaded:

After finding there is a new video in the channel, it is downloaded and the commands are executed:

We can see the output from the commands:

Configuration

Update the config.py file:

• channel_id (Mandatory!!!): Get your Youtube channel ID from here.
• api_key (Mandatory!!!): To get the API key create an application and generate the key from here.
• image_type (Optional. Default: “qr_aes”): Different types of images for the video.
  • “cleartext” creates images with the words of the commands.
  • “qr” creates QR codes with the commands.
  • “qr_aes” creates QR codes with the commands encrypted with AES.
• upload_seconds_delay (Optional. Default: 300): Seconds delay until checking if a new video has been uploaded.
• debug (Optional. Default: True): Print messages or not.
• aes_key (Optional. Default: “covert-tube_2021”): Key for AES encryption, used in the “qr_aes” option.
• generated_video_path (Optional. Default: “output.avi”): Path of video generated with generate_video.py.
• downloaded_video_path (Optional. Default: “/tmp/test.mp4”): Path where the new video will be downloaded.
• temp_folder (Optional. Default: “/tmp/”): Path where images of every frame from the video are stored, with the format image_X.png.

Installation

For all the project:

sudo apt install libzbar0
pip3 install Pillow opencv-python youtube_dl pytesseract pyqrcode pypng pyzbar pycrypto
git clone https://github.com/ricardojoserf/covert-tube

Creating a standalone binary

pyinstaller –onefile main.py
cp dist/main covert-tube
rm -rf dist build
rm main.spec