Automatic Malware Analysis


Book Description

Malicious software (i.e., malware) has become a severe threat to interconnected computer systems for decades and has caused billions of dollars damages each year. A large volume of new malware samples are discovered daily. Even worse, malware is rapidly evolving becoming more sophisticated and evasive to strike against current malware analysis and defense systems. Automatic Malware Analysis presents a virtualized malware analysis framework that addresses common challenges in malware analysis. In regards to this new analysis framework, a series of analysis techniques for automatic malware analysis is developed. These techniques capture intrinsic characteristics of malware, and are well suited for dealing with new malware samples and attack mechanisms.




Cuckoo Malware Analysis


Book Description

This book is a step-by-step, practical tutorial for analyzing and detecting malware and performing digital investigations. This book features clear and concise guidance in an easily accessible format.Cuckoo Malware Analysis is great for anyone who wants to analyze malware through programming, networking, disassembling, forensics, and virtualization. Whether you are new to malware analysis or have some experience, this book will help you get started with Cuckoo Sandbox so you can start analysing malware effectively and efficiently.




Evaluating Tool Based Automated Malware Analysis Through Persistence Mechanism Detection


Book Description

Since 2014 there have been over 120 million new malicious programs registered every year. Due to the amount of new malware appearing every year, analysts have automated large sections of the malware reverse engineering process. Many automated analysis systems are created by re-implementing analysis techniques rather than automating existing tools that utilize the same techniques. New implementations take longer to create and do not have the same proven quality as a tool that evolved alongside malware for many years. The goal of this study is to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of using existing tools for the application of automated malware analysis. This study focuses on the problem of discovering how malware persists on an infected system. Six tools are chosen based on their usefulness in manual analysis for revealing different persistence techniques employed by malware. The functions of these tools are automated in a fashion that emulates how they can be manually utilized, resulting in information about a tested sample. These six tools are tested against a collection of actual malware samples, pulled from malware families that are known for employing various persistence techniques. The findings are then scanned for indicators of persistence. The results of these tests are used to determine the smallest tool subset that discovers the largest range of persistence mechanisms. For each tool, implementation difficulty is compared to the number of indicators discovered to reveal the effectiveness of similar tools for future analysis applications. The conclusion is that while the tools covered a wide range of persistence mechanisms, the standalone tools that were designed with scripting in mind were more effective than those with multiple system requirements or those with only a graphical interface. It was also discovered that the automation process limits functionality of some tools, as they are designed for analyst interaction. Regaining the tools' functionality lost from automation to use them for other reverse engineering applications could be cumbersome and could require necessary implementation overhauls. Finally, the more successful tools were able to detect a broader range of techniques, while some less successful tools could only detect a portion of the same techniques. This study concludes that while an analysis system can be created by automating existing tools, the characteristics of the tools chosen impact the workload required to automate them. A well-documented tool that is controllable through a command line interface that offers many configuration options will require less work for an analyst to automate than a tool with little documentation that can only be controlled through a graphical interface.




Botnet Detection


Book Description

Botnets have become the platform of choice for launching attacks and committing fraud on the Internet. A better understanding of Botnets will help to coordinate and develop new technologies to counter this serious security threat. Botnet Detection: Countering the Largest Security Threat consists of chapters contributed by world-class leaders in this field, from the June 2006 ARO workshop on Botnets. This edited volume represents the state-of-the-art in research on Botnets.




Malware Detection


Book Description

This book captures the state of the art research in the area of malicious code detection, prevention and mitigation. It contains cutting-edge behavior-based techniques to analyze and detect obfuscated malware. The book analyzes current trends in malware activity online, including botnets and malicious code for profit, and it proposes effective models for detection and prevention of attacks using. Furthermore, the book introduces novel techniques for creating services that protect their own integrity and safety, plus the data they manage.







International Joint Conference CISIS’12-ICEUTE ́12-SOCO ́12 Special Sessions


Book Description

This volume of Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing contains accepted papers presented at CISIS 2012 and ICEUTE 2012, both conferences held in the beautiful and historic city of Ostrava (Czech Republic), in September 2012. CISIS aims to offer a meeting opportunity for academic and industry-related researchers belonging to the various, vast communities of Computational Intelligence, Information Security, and Data Mining. The need for intelligent, flexible behaviour by large, complex systems, especially in mission-critical domains, is intended to be the catalyst and the aggregation stimulus for the overall event. After a through peer-review process, the CISIS 2012 International Program Committee selected 30 papers which are published in these conference proceedings achieving an acceptance rate of 40%. In the case of ICEUTE 2012, the International Program Committee selected 4 papers which are published in these conference proceedings. The selection of papers was extremely rigorous in order to maintain the high quality of the conference and we would like to thank the members of the Program Committees for their hard work in the reviewing process. This is a crucial process to the creation of a high standard conference and the CISIS and ICEUTE conferences would not exist without their help.




Malware Analysis Techniques


Book Description

Analyze malicious samples, write reports, and use industry-standard methodologies to confidently triage and analyze adversarial software and malware Key FeaturesInvestigate, detect, and respond to various types of malware threatUnderstand how to use what you've learned as an analyst to produce actionable IOCs and reportingExplore complete solutions, detailed walkthroughs, and case studies of real-world malware samplesBook Description Malicious software poses a threat to every enterprise globally. Its growth is costing businesses millions of dollars due to currency theft as a result of ransomware and lost productivity. With this book, you'll learn how to quickly triage, identify, attribute, and remediate threats using proven analysis techniques. Malware Analysis Techniques begins with an overview of the nature of malware, the current threat landscape, and its impact on businesses. Once you've covered the basics of malware, you'll move on to discover more about the technical nature of malicious software, including static characteristics and dynamic attack methods within the MITRE ATT&CK framework. You'll also find out how to perform practical malware analysis by applying all that you've learned to attribute the malware to a specific threat and weaponize the adversary's indicators of compromise (IOCs) and methodology against them to prevent them from attacking. Finally, you'll get to grips with common tooling utilized by professional malware analysts and understand the basics of reverse engineering with the NSA's Ghidra platform. By the end of this malware analysis book, you'll be able to perform in-depth static and dynamic analysis and automate key tasks for improved defense against attacks. What you will learnDiscover how to maintain a safe analysis environment for malware samplesGet to grips with static and dynamic analysis techniques for collecting IOCsReverse-engineer and debug malware to understand its purposeDevelop a well-polished workflow for malware analysisUnderstand when and where to implement automation to react quickly to threatsPerform malware analysis tasks such as code analysis and API inspectionWho this book is for This book is for incident response professionals, malware analysts, and researchers who want to sharpen their skillset or are looking for a reference for common static and dynamic analysis techniques. Beginners will also find this book useful to get started with learning about malware analysis. Basic knowledge of command-line interfaces, familiarity with Windows and Unix-like filesystems and registries, and experience in scripting languages such as PowerShell, Python, or Ruby will assist with understanding the concepts covered.




Malware Science


Book Description

Unlock the secrets of malware data science with cutting-edge techniques, AI-driven analysis, and international compliance standards to stay ahead of the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape Key Features Get introduced to three primary AI tactics used in malware and detection Leverage data science tools to combat critical cyber threats Understand regulatory requirements for using AI in cyber threat management Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionIn today's world full of online threats, the complexity of harmful software presents a significant challenge for detection and analysis. This insightful guide will teach you how to apply the principles of data science to online security, acting as both an educational resource and a practical manual for everyday use. Malware Science starts by explaining the nuances of malware, from its lifecycle to its technological aspects before introducing you to the capabilities of data science in malware detection by leveraging machine learning, statistical analytics, and social network analysis. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll explore the analytical methods of reverse engineering, machine language, dynamic scrutiny, and behavioral assessments of malicious software. You’ll also develop an understanding of the evolving cybersecurity compliance landscape with regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, and gain insights into the global efforts in curbing cyber threats. By the end of this book, you’ll have a firm grasp on the modern malware lifecycle and how you can employ data science within cybersecurity to ward off new and evolving threats.What you will learn Understand the science behind malware data and its management lifecycle Explore anomaly detection with signature and heuristics-based methods Analyze data to uncover relationships between data points and create a network graph Discover methods for reverse engineering and analyzing malware Use ML, advanced analytics, and data mining in malware data analysis and detection Explore practical insights and the future state of AI’s use for malware data science Understand how NLP AI employs algorithms to analyze text for malware detection Who this book is for This book is for cybersecurity experts keen on adopting data-driven defense methods. Data scientists will learn how to apply their skill set to address critical security issues, and compliance officers navigating global regulations like GDPR and CCPA will gain indispensable insights. Academic researchers exploring the intersection of data science and cybersecurity, IT decision-makers overseeing organizational strategy, and tech enthusiasts eager to understand modern cybersecurity will also find plenty of useful information in this guide. A basic understanding of cybersecurity and information technology is a prerequisite.




Detection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment, DIMVA 2012, held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, in July 2012. The 10 revised full papers presented together with 4 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 44 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on malware, mobile security, secure design, and intrusion detection systems (IDS).