Foreword
The threat of malware is everywhere. Individuals, organizations, businesses, and governments are being targeted. The motivation of these threats has evolved from simple nuisance to information theft and espionage. Because of this, the role of malware in cybercrime and digital fraud is bigger than ever. Malware has become a standard part of the arsenal an attacker deploys for malicious campaigns against targeted entities.
The consequences of these attacks are not confined to the destruction of digital assets alone. With everything around us being controlled by digital assets that are connected with each other, a destruction or failure caused by malware can translate to destroyed infrastructure and even loss of human lives. Imagine a destruction of our power production, transmission, or distribution infrastructures, the result of which could be devastating.
Malware threatens our national security. The theft of military secrets, defense and military strategy, and plans for new weapons can give adversaries an advantage. Compromised weapon control systems might have catastrophic consequences.
Understanding a malware’s main directive gives us the ability to mitigate its threat and strengthen our defenses against future generations of similar malware attacks. It helps us build better solutions that minimize the proliferation of malware and helps us detect and respond to compromises. Malware analysis is an indispensable skill for security professionals who are tasked with battling advanced threat actors head on.
Malware analysis requires, aside from understanding the concepts of malware and the different tools available, a lot of patience and perseverance. It is often considered a challenging topic to tackle, but it is an exciting one. This book will walk you through the exciting paths of analyzing malware. It starts with introducing the different malware concepts and taxonomy, and progresses to hunting down and collecting malware samples, and finally how to analyze them effectively by using the right tools the right way.