CAPE Sandbox

CAPE Sandbox (Config And Payload Extraction) is an open-source, automated malware analysis and behavioral detonation framework derived from Cuckoo Sandbox, engineered specifically to automate malware unpacking, dynamic configuration extraction, and payload recovery. Modern malware authors routinely employ sophisticated crypters, packers, anti-virtualization heuristics, and process injection techniques designed to defeat traditional signature detection and basic sandbox environments. CAPE overcomes these evasion mechanisms by monitoring low-level Windows kernel API calls, hooking system processes, and dynamically unpacking encrypted payloads directly from memory during execution. The framework features specialized extraction plugins capable of extracting decrypted configuration data—such as command-and-control (C2) server IP addresses, encryption keys, campaign IDs, and embedded downloader scripts—from prominent banking trojans, ransomware strains, stealers, and loaders including Emotet, QakBot, Agent Tesla, and RedLine. CAPE generates comprehensive analysis reports containing full execution process trees, network packet captures (PCAP), memory dumps, and extracted indicators of compromise (IOCs) mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. By automating the time-consuming process of reverse engineering and payload extraction, CAPE empowers security researchers and SOC analysts to triage advanced threats and extract actionable cyber threat intelligence rapidly.