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wtf is carbonmonoxide?

rkervella/carbonmonoxide — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-08-10 · repo last pushed 2020-05-28

29Audience · researcherComplexity · 4/5DormantSetup · hard

TL;DR

A proof-of-concept security tool that chains four evasion techniques together to test whether endpoint detection and response systems can catch sneaky attack methods used by real adversaries.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Tests EDR detection
      Bundles evasion methods
      Simulates real attacks
    Techniques used
      PPID spoofing
      CmdLine spoofing
      QAPC injection
      TikiTorch
    Tech stack
      C or C++ likely
      Windows only
      Cobalt Strike integration
    Audience
      Security researchers
      Red team operators
    Status
      Work in progress
      Sparse README
      No setup instructions

Code map

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Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Test whether your company's EDR product catches process injection and evasion attacks.

REASON 2

Chain multiple evasion techniques together during a red team engagement to probe defense gaps.

REASON 3

Use as a reference implementation to understand how attackers combine PPID spoofing, cmdline spoofing, and injection.

What's in the stack?

C/C++Windows APICobalt Strike

How it stacks up

rkervella/carbonmonoxide2836048681/cc-switch-codexcontable-rip/cc-visionrouter
Stars292929
LanguageRustJavaScript
Last pushed2020-05-28
MaintenanceDormant
Setup difficultyhardmoderateeasy
Complexity4/53/52/5
Audienceresearcherdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Requires a Windows environment with EDR installed for testing, plus familiarity with Cobalt Strike and offensive security concepts, no setup instructions are provided.

No license information is provided, so default copyright applies and use is legally restricted.

Wtf does this do

CarbonMonoxide is a security research tool designed to help test whether endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems, the software companies use to catch malware and intrusions, can actually spot sneaky techniques that real attackers use. In simple terms, it's a proof-of-concept that bundles several known evasion methods together to see if security tools are doing their job. At a high level, it combines four techniques. "PPID spoofing" makes a program pretend it was launched by a different, trusted program. "CmdLine spoofing" hides what a program was actually told to do. "QAPC injection" is a way for one process to force another to run code. And "TikiTorch" is an existing tool used in red team exercises (simulated attacks) that works with Cobalt Strike, a commercial penetration testing platform. By chaining these together, the project creates a harder-to-detect scenario for EDR products. The people who would use this are security researchers and red team operators, the professionals organizations hire to simulate real attacks and find gaps in their defenses. For example, if a company wants to verify their EDR catches process injection attacks, they might run this against it to find out. It's essentially a testing tool, not something for production environments. The README is sparse and marks the project as "work in progress," so it doesn't provide setup instructions, usage examples, or detailed explanations beyond listing the four techniques. This isn't a polished product, it reads more like an experiment or reference implementation for people who already understand these concepts and want to see them combined in practice.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
Help me understand how CarbonMonoxide chains PPID spoofing, cmdline spoofing, QAPC injection, and TikiTorch together to evade EDR detection.
Prompt 2
I want to build a test lab to check if our EDR catches CarbonMonoxide-style evasion techniques, what Windows setup and logging should I configure first?
Prompt 3
Walk me through what each of the four techniques in CarbonMonoxide does and which EDR telemetry sources would be needed to detect them.

Frequently asked questions

wtf is carbonmonoxide?

A proof-of-concept security tool that chains four evasion techniques together to test whether endpoint detection and response systems can catch sneaky attack methods used by real adversaries.

Is carbonmonoxide actively maintained?

Dormant — no commits in 2+ years (last push 2020-05-28).

What license does carbonmonoxide use?

No license information is provided, so default copyright applies and use is legally restricted.

How hard is carbonmonoxide to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 1h+ to a first successful run.

Who is carbonmonoxide for?

Mainly researcher.

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