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

5. IDA Scripting and Plugins


IDA offers scripting capabilities that give you access to the contents of an IDA database. Using the scripting functionality, you can automate some of the common tasks and complex analysis operations. IDA supports two scripting languages: IDC, which is a native, built-in language (with syntax similar to C), and Python scripting through IDAPython. In September 2017, Hex-Rays released a new version of IDAPython API that is compatible with IDA 7.0 and later versions. This section will give you a feel of the scripting capabilities using IDAPython; the IDAPython scripts demonstrated in this section makes use of the new IDAPython API, which means that if you are using older versions of IDA (lower than IDA 7.0), these scripts will not work. After you have become familiar with IDA and the reverse engineering concepts, you may want to automate tasks, the following resources should help you get started with IDAPython scripting:

  • The Beginner’s Guide to IDAPython by Alexander...