# secretsquirrel/SigThief

Stealing Signatures and Making One Invalid Signature at a Time

Repository: https://github.com/secretsquirrel/SigThief
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/sigthief
Language: Python
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: pe, python, testing-antivirus, certificates, python3
Last push: 2021-08-11T19:34:42+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3288, "days_push": 1848, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2416, forks 483 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:50.300218+00:00)

## What it is
SigThief is a Python CLI tool that rips the Authenticode signature off a signed PE file and appends it to another binary, patching the certificate table. The resulting signature is intentionally invalid, making it useful for testing how antivirus engines prioritize PE signatures.

## Use cases
- test how antivirus engines treat PE signatures
- copy a code-signing certificate table from one exe to another
- check whether a PE file is signed
- remove or truncate a signature from a Windows binary
- evaluate AV trust in certificate authorities without signature validation

## When to choose
- you are a security professional testing antivirus signature handling
- you need to quickly append or strip Authenticode signatures on PE files
- you want a lightweight Python script for red-team AV evasion research

## When to avoid
- you need to create genuinely valid code signatures
- you are signing binaries for production software distribution
- you need cross-platform signing formats beyond Windows PE

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: security, penetration-testing, cli
- domain: security, penetration-testing, developer-tools
- platform: python, cli, windows, cross-platform
- tags: pe-files, code-signing, antivirus-testing, signature-forgery, red-team

## Member repositories
- secretsquirrel/SigThief (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:50.300218+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:33:09.898598+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/secretsquirrel/SigThief (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:50.300218+00:00, sha bb915dcb7851)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.