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

6. Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) Analysis


A Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) is a module that contains functions (called exported functions or exports) that can be used by another program (such as an Executable or DLL). An executable can use the functions implemented in a DLL by importing it from the DLL.

The Windows operating system contains many DLLs that export various functions called Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The functions contained in these DLLs are used by the processes to interact with the file system, process, registry, network, and the graphical user interface (GUI).

To display the exported functions in CFF Explorer tool, load the PE file that export functions and click on Export Directory. The following screenshot show some of the functions exported by Kernel32.dll (it is an operating system DLL and is located in the C:\Windows\System32 directory). One of the functions exported by Kernel32.dll is CreateFile; this API function is used to create or open a file:

In the following...