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

2. Static Code Analysis (Disassembly) Using IDA


Hex-Rays IDA Pro is the most powerful and popular commercial disassembler/debugger (https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/index.shtml); it is used by reverse engineers, malware analysts, and vulnerability researchers. IDA can run on various platforms (Windows, Linux, and macOS) and supports analysis of various file formats, including the PE/ELF/Macho-O formats. Apart from the commercial version, IDA is distributed in two other versions: IDA demo version (evaluation version) and IDA Freeware version; both these versions have certain limitations. You can download the freeware version of IDA for non-commercial use from https://www.hex-rays.com/products/ida/support/download_freeware.shtml. At the time of writing this book, the distributed freeware version is IDA 7.0; it lets you disassemble both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows binary but you will not be able to debug the binary, using the free version. The demo version (evaluation version) of IDA can...