In this chapter, you gained an understanding of the steps involved in unpacking and re-building packed binaries. You also learnt how to configure IDA Pro for kernel debugging, involving tools such as VMWare and VirtualKD. You learnt how to use the various Windbg commands and utilize them towards gleaning information from the target. You delved into the debugger mechanisms in Windows and looked at how the debugger features are implemented. You also browsed over essential Windows internals concepts, such as SEH, call gates, SYSENTER, interrupts various APIs. You started with computing foundations, C programming and reversing fundamentals, assembly programming using VC++ and MAS32, a comprehensive look at the malware analysts' toolkit, and an in-depth malware analysis session of a real world malware. At this point, you have all the foundations required to explore malware analysis on your own, in both the user land and the kernel land.

In the next chapter, we will go over some commonly...