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

3. Debugging a Binary Using IDA


In the previous chapter, we looked at the disassembly features of IDA Pro. In this chapter, you will learn about IDA's debugging capabilities. The commercial version of IDA can debug both 32-bit and 64-bit applications, whereas the demo version only allows you to debug a 32-bit Windows binary. In this section, you will see some of the debugging features offered by IDA Pro, and you will learn how to use it to debug a malicious binary. 

3.1 Launching a New Process in IDA

There are different ways to launch a new process; one method is to directly launch the debugger, without initially loading the program. To do that, launch IDA (without loading the executable), then select Debugger | Run | Local Windows debugger; this will bring up a dialog where you can choose the file to debug. If the executable takes any parameters, you can specify them in the Parameters field. This method will start a new process, and the debugger will pause the execution at the program's entry...