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

1. Computer Basics


A computer is a machine that processes information. All of the information in the computer is represented in bits. A bit is an individual unit that can take either of the two values 0 or 1. The collection of bits can represent a number, a character, or any other  piece of information.

Fundamental data types:

A group of 8 bits makes a byte. A single byte is represented as two hexadecimal digits, and each hexadecimal digit is 4 bits in size and called a nibble. For example, the binary number 01011101 translates to 5D in hexadecimal. The digit 5 (0101) and digit D (1101) are the nibbles:

Apart from bytes, there are other data types, such as a word, which is 2 bytes (16 bits) in size, a double word (dword) is 4 bytes (32 bits), and a quadword (qword) is 8 bytes (64 bits) in size:

Data Interpretation:

A byte, or sequence of bytes, can be interpreted differently. For example, 5D can represent the binary number 01011101, or the decimal number 93, or the character ]. The byte 5D can...