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. Malware Functionalities


By now, you should have an understanding of how malware utilizes API functions to interact with the system. In this section, you will understand how malware makes use of various API functions to implement certain functionality. For information regarding where to find help about a particular API and how to read the API documentation, refer to section 3, Disassembling the Windows API, in Chapter 5Disassembly Using IDA.

1.1 Downloader

The simplest type of malware that you will encounter during malware analysis is a Downloader. A downloader is a program that downloads another malware component from the internet and executes it on the system. It does that by calling the UrlDownloadToFile() API, which downloads the file onto the disk. Once downloaded, it then uses either ShellExecute()WinExec(), or CreateProcess() API calls to execute the downloaded component. Normally, you will find that downloaders are used as part of the exploit shellcode.

The following screenshot...