What is the most used malware analysis technique?

Malware analysis is the study or process of determining the functionality, origin and potential impact of a given malware sample such as a virus, worm, trojan horse, rootkit, or backdoor.[1] Malware or malicious software is any computer software intended to harm the host operating system or to steal sensitive data from users, organizations or companies. Malware may include software that gathers user information without permission.[2]

Use cases[edit]

There are three typical use cases that drive the need for malware analysis:

• Computer security incident management: If an organization discovers or suspects that some malware may have gotten into its systems, a response team may wish to perform malware analysis on any potential samples that are discovered during the investigation process to determine if they are malware and, if so, what impact that malware might have on the systems within the target organizations' environment.
• Malware research: Academic or industry malware researchers may perform malware analysis simply to understand how malware behaves and the latest techniques used in its construction.
• Indicator of compromise extraction: Vendors of software products and solutions may perform bulk malware analysis in order to determine potential new indicators of compromise; this information may then feed the security product or solution to help organizations better defend themselves against attack by malware.

Types[edit]

The method by which malware analysis is performed typically falls under one of two types:

• Static malware analysis: Static or Code Analysis is usually performed by dissecting the different resources of the binary file without executing it and studying each component. The binary file can also be disassembled (or reverse engineered) using a disassembler such as IDA or Ghidra. The machine code can sometimes be translated into assembly code which can be read and understood by humans: the malware analyst can then read the assembly as it is correlated with specific functions and actions inside the program, then make sense of the assembly instructions and have a better visualization of what the program is doing and how it was originally designed. Viewing the assembly allows the malware analyst/reverse engineer to get a better understanding of what is supposed to happen versus what is really happening and start to map out hidden actions or unintended functionality. Some modern malware is authored using evasive techniques to defeat this type of analysis, for example by embedding syntactic code errors that will confuse disassemblers but that will still function during actual execution.[3]
• Dynamic malware analysis: Dynamic or Behavioral analysis is performed by observing the behavior of the malware while it is actually running on a host system. This form of analysis is often performed in a sandbox environment to prevent the malware from actually infecting production systems; many such sandboxes are virtual systems that can easily be rolled back to a clean state after the analysis is complete. The malware may also be debugged while running using a debugger such as GDB or WinDbg to watch the behavior and effects on the host system of the malware step by step while its instructions are being processed. Modern malware can exhibit a wide variety of evasive techniques designed to defeat dynamic analysis including testing for virtual environments or active debuggers, delaying execution of malicious payloads, or requiring some form of interactive user input.[4]

Stages[edit]

Examining malicious software involves several stages, including, but not limited to the following:

• Manual Code Reversing
• Interactive Behavior Analysis
• Static Properties Analysis
• Fully-Automated Analysis

References[edit]

1. ^ "International Journal of Advanced Research in Malware Analysis" (PDF). ijarcsse. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-18. Retrieved 2016-05-30.
2. ^ "Malware Definition". Retrieved 2016-05-30.
3. ^ Honig, Andrew; Sikorski, Michael (February 2012). Practical Malware Analysis. No Starch Press. ISBN 9781593272906. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
4. ^ Keragala, Dilshan (January 2016). "Detecting Malware and Sandbox Evasion Techniques". SANS Institute.

Before using a  malware analysis tool, a goal must be set. With regards to battling malware, you might question yourself as a security professional—"for what reason would I have to perform malware analysis?" If an organization is in charge of the security of its network, it will need to perform malware analysis.

Malware is getting to be target specific towards financial gain. More malware is in the wild. It has less chance of anti-malware or anti-virus applications identifying the malware. The goal of malware analysis is to gain a comprehension of how a particular bit of malware works. This is necessary to build a barrier to secure an organization’s network.

There are two key inquiries that need answers. The main: how did the machine become tainted with this bit of malware? The second: what does this malware do?

Determine the particular type of malware. You should figure out which question is more critical to your situation. Since you have decided your goal, it is time to talk about the two common types of malware analysis.

Types of Malware Analysis

There are two types of malware analysis that security experts perform. These are static malware analysis and dynamic malware analysis. The two sorts of malware analysis achieve a similar goal. But, the abilities and tools required are different.

Static analysis is the actual review of code and walking through it. Dynamic analysis is the means by which the malware carries on when executed. Also, what gets installed, to whom it converses with, and how it runs. When performing malware analysis, both static and dynamic malware analyses should be performed. This is to gain a total understanding of how specific malware functions.

Malware functions take into consideration better defenses to shield the organization. The organization must know about the laws about reverse code engineering. Before attempting reversing, check the local country laws about reverse code engineering.

Static Malware Analysis

Static malware analysis is performed by looking at the software code of the malware. This is to gain a better comprehension of how the malware functions. While performing static malware analysis, antivirus software will run on the malware. Files such as shell scripts will be examined. Most likely, reverse engineering should be performed using programs. Examples are debuggers, disassemblers, and decompilers. After reversing malware, the IT team will be able to see how the source code of the malware functions.

Seeing how the code functions allow the IT team to fabricate better safeguards. They will also serve as a sanity check on the finished dynamic malware analysis.  Malware today is becoming more focused on. Seeing how malware infects systems can diminish infections to an organization. In this way, it decreases the general expense.

Dynamic Malware Analysis

Dynamic malware analysis is a quick method of malware analysis. When performing dynamic malware analysis, look at how the malware carries on. Check on what changes the malware makes for a baseline system. It is basic that the malware lab isn't associated with another network. Files must be transferred utilizing a read-only medium.

There are changes in the system that should raise a warning. It includes files that have been altered or included. Check for new services that have been installed. If any system settings have been adjusted, and new processes that are running. This would incorporate DNS server settings of the workstation which have been changed. Besides the behavior of the system itself, network traffic will likewise be analyzed.

We know of what behavior the malware does to networks. The IT team will see how the malware performs these activities. The responses to that question need the IT team to perform a malware analysis.

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