Book Image

Learning Malware Analysis

By : Monnappa K A
5 (1)
Book Image

Learning Malware Analysis

5 (1)
By: Monnappa K A

Overview of this book

Malware analysis and memory forensics are powerful analysis and investigation techniques used in reverse engineering, digital forensics, and incident response. With adversaries becoming sophisticated and carrying out advanced malware attacks on critical infrastructures, data centers, and private and public organizations, detecting, responding to, and investigating such intrusions is critical to information security professionals. Malware analysis and memory forensics have become must-have skills to fight advanced malware, targeted attacks, and security breaches. This book teaches you the concepts, techniques, and tools to understand the behavior and characteristics of malware through malware analysis. It also teaches you techniques to investigate and hunt malware using memory forensics. This book introduces you to the basics of malware analysis, and then gradually progresses into the more advanced concepts of code analysis and memory forensics. It uses real-world malware samples, infected memory images, and visual diagrams to help you gain a better understanding of the subject and to equip you with the skills required to analyze, investigate, and respond to malware-related incidents.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

2. Debugging a Binary Using x64dbg


x64dbg (https://x64dbg.com) is an open source debugger. You can use x64dbg to debug both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. It has an easy-to-use GUI and offers various debugging features (https://x64dbg.com/#features).

In this section, you will see some of the debugging features offered by x64dbg, and how to use it to debug a malicious binary.

2.1 Launching a New Process in x64dbg

In x64dbg, to load an executable, select File | Open and browse to the file that you wish to debug; this will start the process, and the debugger will pause at the System Breakpoint, the TLS callback, or the program entry point function, depending on the configuration settings. You can access the settings dialog by choosing Options | Preferences | Events. The default settings dialog is shown as follows, with the default settings when the executable is loaded. The debugger first breaks in the system function (because the System Breakpoint* option is checked). Next, after you run the...