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DRAKVUF

1.0 open-source

DRAKVUF is a virtualization-based agentless black-box binary analysis system for in-depth execution tracing of arbitrary binaries without installing software in the VM.

Summary

DRAKVUF is an open-source, agentless binary analysis system that traces the execution of arbitrary binaries, including whole operating systems, inside a virtual machine without installing anything in the guest. It runs on Intel hardware with VT-x and Extended Page Tables, monitoring Windows 7 through 10 and Linux 2.6 through 6.x guests, and is built to be run as a sandboxingsandboxingRunning code inside a restricted environment that limits what it can access or change. The isolation reduces the impact of mistakes or untrusted code, depending on the sandbox's controls. backend rather than a desktop application. Its stealthy footprint suits malware analysts and reverse engineers who need to watch a sample's kernel and userspace behavior without tipping it off. The README points to the separate DRAKVUF Sandbox project for a full graphical frontend, implying DRAKVUF itself is the analysis engine underneath. First committed in 2014, it remains active, with 76 contributors and 14 commits and 11 releases in the past year.

DRAKVUF is a virtualization-based agentless black-box binary analysis system for in-depth execution tracing of arbitrary binaries without installing software in the VM.

How DRAKVUF helps

What is this sample actually doing inside the guest once it runs?

traces kernel and userspace execution path by path from outside the VM, using hardware virtualization extensions rather than an in-guest agent, so nothing runs inside that the sample could detect

Can a suspicious binary be run and watched without tipping it off?

starts execution agentlessly on Windows or Linux guests and observes it from the hypervisor level, leaving no monitoring process, driver or hook for the sample to find inside the VM

Which files did a dropper write that never touched disk before it exited?

pulls files out of guest memory before the operating system discards them, recovering artifacts that a disk-only capture would miss

What did a process touch on the filesystem during a run?

plugins tracking file access record which files a monitored process opened or modified over the course of execution

How does heap behavior change over the life of a monitored process?

a dedicated plugin traces heap allocations inside the guest as they happen, giving a timeline of allocation activity tied to the traced process

How do I get a file into a Windows guest and get code running from it without installing anything first?

inserts the file into the guest and hijacks an existing process's execution to launch it, without any in-guest helper needed beforehand

all 11 features, with the evidence for each →

Languages

Not documented

Features

11 capabilities

Built from DRAKVUF's releases, docs, README and our own runs. “Seen” marks the month we first spotted a release the vendor didn't date. Group names and tags are our labels.

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  • DRAKVUF covers 1 of the 3 runtime security capabilities we track.

What DRAKVUF offers you

  • Plugin system3
  • Agentless deployment1
All capabilities 11 capabilities
In-VM traffic and protocol monitoring shipped Monitors internal VM communications including TLS traffic, RPC activity, Unix sockets, and IP traces. 10 releases · first seen Jun 2017

Also counts toward: Plugin system

release 10 total

Kernel and system call monitoring shipped Monitors kernel-level activities including eBPF programs, ptrace syscalls, callbacks, and event tracing (ETW). 7 releases · first seen Aug 2016

Shared capability: eBPF-based runtime detection

release 7 total

  • Adds EBPFMon plugin for monitoring eBPF programs and maps. 1.0 · Dec 2022 · source · release history
  • Adds PTraceMon plugin for monitoring ptrace syscalls. 1.0 · Dec 2022 · source · release history
  • Adds ETWMon plugin for monitoring Event Tracing for Windows. 1.0 · Dec 2022 · source · release history
  • Adds CallbackMon plugin for monitoring callback registrations. 1.0 · Dec 2022 · source · release history
  • Updates filetracer to use syscalls instead of ExAllocatePoolWithTag for better reliability 0.5 · Jun 2017 · source · release history
  • syscall plugin now prints detailed arguments for Windows guests 0.5 · Jun 2017 · source · release history
Real-time process memory dumping shipped Captures memory dumps from running processes in real-time using plugins like procdump2 and codemon. 4 releases · 1 other source · first seen Oct 2019

Also counts toward: Plugin system

release

  • Adds codemon plugin for capturing memory dumps from running processes. 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source · release history
  • Adds procdump2 plugin for process memory dumping with improved capabilities. 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source · release history
  • Adds procdump plugin to capture process memory dumps within the hypervisor. 0.7 · Jul 2020 · source · release history
  • Introduces MEMDump plugin for memory dumping 0.6 · Oct 2019 · source · release history

example

  • Capture process memory dumps in real-time using the procdump2 plugin. drakvuf --name <guest_name> --plugin 'procdump2' 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source
Agentless virtualization-based binary analysis shipped Traces execution of arbitrary binaries and malware inside VMs without requiring guest software installation. 3 releases · 1 other source · first seen Oct 2019

Also counts toward: Agentless deployment

release

  • Introduces libusermode helper library to enable monitoring of usermode code execution. 0.7 · Jul 2020 · source · release history
  • Adds REPL interactive console for live command execution during analysis. 0.7 · Jul 2020 · source · release history
  • Adds Linux OS support to the Injector module 0.6 · Oct 2019 · source · release history

docs

  • Agentless virtualization-based binary analysis system that traces execution of arbitrary binaries and malware inside VMs without installing guest software.
Host intrusion detection simulation and monitoring shipped Simulates HIDS events with hidsim and detects rootkits via hook monitoring with rootkitmon. 3 releases · first seen Mar 2016

Also counts toward: Plugin system

release

  • Adds hidsim plugin for simulating host intrusion detection events. 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source · release history
  • Adds rootkitmon plugin for detecting rootkits via hook monitoring. 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source · release history
  • Adds a plugin system to interact with the generic monitoring capability 0.2 · Mar 2016 · source · release history
Real-time exploit pattern detection shipped Identifies and monitors for exploitation techniques in real-time using the exploitmon plugin. 2 releases · 1 other source · first seen Jul 2020

release

  • Adds exploitmon plugin for identifying exploit patterns in real-time. 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source · release history
  • Adds apimon plugin to monitor application programming interface calls. 0.7 · Jul 2020 · source · release history

example

  • Monitor for exploitation techniques using the new exploitmon plugin. drakvuf --name <guest_name> --plugin 'exploitmon' 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source
Process and object activity monitoring shipped Captures events related to process creation, window interactions, clipboard changes, and registry modifications. 3 releases · first seen Oct 2019

release

Anti-evasion and virtualization detection shipped Detects VM hiding techniques and monitors for memory spraying operations. 2 releases · first seen Dec 2022

release

  • Adds HideVM plugin for detecting virtual machine hiding techniques. 1.0 · Dec 2022 · source · release history
  • Adds SprayMon plugin for monitoring spray operations. 1.0 · Dec 2022 · source · release history
Linux file access auditing shipped Audits file access events in guest operating systems using the Linux filetracer plugin. 1 release · 1 other source · first seen Dec 2021

release

example

  • Use the new Linux filetracer to audit file access events in a guest OS. drakvuf --name <guest_name> --plugin 'filetracer:linux' 0.8 · Dec 2021 · source
System crash and stability monitoring shipped Detects system-level anomalies such as blue screens and application crashes. 2 releases · first seen Oct 2019

release

Windows 10 and Windows 11 guest OS support documented Supports analysis of guest virtual machines running 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 11. 1 other source · first seen Oct 2026

docs

  • Windows 10 & Windows 11 64-bit docs update · Oct 2026 · source

Lines in monospace are the tool's own words: help text parsed from its source, or an endpoint from its API document. Under release, a line is our summary of a dated release. Under docs, it is quoted from the tool's own documentation or website. Each links back to the source it came from.

Score card

  1. Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
  2. Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
  3. Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
  4. Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
  5. Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
  6. Community health
  7. Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
  8. Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
  9. Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
  10. Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply

Nine scores for DRAKVUF, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.

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Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.

How this is scored
  • Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
  • Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
  • Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
  • Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
  • Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
  • Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
  • Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
  • Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.

Release-note detail over time

See how much detail DRAKVUF puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.

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Coverage

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What DRAKVUF connects to, runs on and detects, read from its release notes and docs. So far: 1 new supported platform.

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1 change, tracked since Oct 31, 2026.

  • Oct 312026

    new Windows 10 and Windows 11 64-bit support

    Windows 10 & Windows 11 64-bit

    Source ↗

How we count

Read from 1 of 8 release notes and docs updates we hold for DRAKVUF. "First seen" is the earliest note that names something; "last" is the latest. Our history may start partway through DRAKVUF's life, so an old integration can show a recent first-seen date.

Each change counts once: "added 40 checks" is one line, so the numbers measure how often coverage moves, not how big the catalogue is or how well it detects.

Releases

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Coverage in all entries

8 entries

  1. October 20261
  2. December 20221
  3. December 20211
  4. July 20201
  5. October 20191
  6. June 20171
  7. August 20161
  8. March 20161
    Show
    Coverage in all entries

    8 entries

    Project health

    Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in tklengyel/drakvuf, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.

    1. Contributors 6 −1 vs prior 12 months
    2. Maintainers 2 +1 joined · −4 left, last 12 months
    3. Bus factor 1 committers behind half the commits
    4. Community-filed 83% of issues opened, last 12 months
    5. Median time to close 4.8 days first maintainer reply 0.2 hours
    6. Open backlog 114 of 495 issues ever filed
    1. Issues opened / month 0 · 0 communitymaintainers
    2. Open backlog 114
    3. Contributors / month 1
    4. Commits / month 1
    5. Stars 1,275
    Issue themes, last 12 months
    • bugs 17%
    • other 83%

    Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this

    Libraries its release ships

    What its latest release locks, checked against known advisories.

    None of its release's images build from a lockfile we can read.

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