Practical Malware Analysis
The Hands-On Guide to Dissecting Malicious Software
by Michael Sikorski, Andrew Honig · first published 2012
81% recommend19% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Hands-on introduction to malware analysis and reverse engineering for beginners, often named as the standard first book. It prepares readers to work with real samples, and its skills carry over to other RE work.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Malware analysis is big business, and attacks can cost a company dearly. When malware breaches your defenses, you need to act quickly to cure current infections and prevent future ones from occurring. For those who want to stay ahead of the latest malware, Practical Malware Analysis will teach you the tools and techniques used by professional analysts. With this book as your guide, you'll be able to safely analyze, debug, and disassemble any malicious software that comes your way. You'll learn how to: –Set up a safe virtual environment to analyze malware –Quickly extract network signat
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…If it interests you, read it; if it doesn't, skip it. 2. The Art of Memory Forensics - Instead of reading this, consider reading The Art of Software Security Assessment (a more rigorous coverage) or Practical Malware Analysis. 3. The Art of Deception - See above for Social Engineering. 4. Applied Cryptography - Cryptography Engineering supersedes this and makes it obsolete, full stop. _________________ What's Not Listed…
on “Cybersecurity Humble Book Bundle” ↗…books on cybersecurity sorted by how often they were mentioned. Hacking Exposed 7 by Stuart McClure Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick Spam Nation by Brian Krebs Practical Malware Analysis by Michael Sikorski Threat Modeling by Adam Shostack Social Engineering by Christopher Hadnagy The Hacker Playbook 3 by Peter Kim The Practice of Network Security Monitoring by Richard Bejtlich Dark…
on “Show HN: A compilation of cybersecurity book recommendations from 25 articles” ↗Practical Malware Analysis - book by Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig
on “Ask HN: Recommendations for malware analysis books” ↗…even if they don't work in security. 6. Gray Hat Python Very hands on, good introduction to aspects of reverse engineering and the typical work an e.g. security consultant will do at a top firm. 7. Practical Malware Analysis Very good introduction to malware analysis. 8. Practical Reverse Engineering This book, along with #9 will teach you everything you need to know to effectively reverse engineer software for security-focused…
on “Ask HN: What are the best books for learning information security?” ↗Apart from the resources already mentioned, the book by Yurichev [1] was very helpful. Also, Practical Malware Analysis by Sikorski and Honig [2]. [1] https://beginners.re/ [2] https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Malware-Analysis-Hands-Diss...
on “Ask HN: How did you learn x86-64 assembly?” ↗Back when I took an interest in malware analysis I got the book Practical Malware Analysis and must say it really was brilliant. Analyzing malware requires knowledge of a range of different technical areas, and the book introduced them well. The best thing though are the malware samples supplied…
on “Building a Home Lab to Become a Malware Hunter – A Beginner’s Guide” ↗…wanted to go down the reverse engineering route: Assembly Language Step-by-Step: Programming with Linux The IDA Pro Book (for the strangely hard to buy IDA Pro, but the free version is pretty good) Practical Malware Analysis
on “Security Certifications Are Causing More Harm Than Good” ↗The lecture slides are released. If you're looking for more detail, I highly recommend the Practical Malware Analysis book! There are also additional books recommended in the readme for the class. We've talked a little about doing something *nix, but I don't think we will have the time until maybe the Summer, as all…
on “Course materials for Malware Analysis” ↗…broken out of if you dont know how to debug simple samples that check for disassemblers or debugger presence. I recommend if you want to get some hands on experience checkout https://nostarch.com/malware (Practical Malware analysis) it will prepare you for messing with real life samples. Techniques are still relevant but technology might be different. Eg: IDA is great but Ghirda is the new hotness on the street. Anyways have fun,…
on “MalwareBazaar – Malware Sample Exchange” ↗…quite a bit of information out there and I’ll basically just repeat what you can find online already. You’re additionally not very specific about your goals, which makes it hard to give specific advice. Practical Malware Analysis is a really great book, even if you don’t intend to reverse malware. It has labs after every chapter, along with solutions. It teaches you about windows, how to approach reversing a program and what to…
on “IDA cybersecurity software provider Hex-Rays acquired” ↗…ways (change hardcoded servers, change program execution flow, disable or enable certain functionality). Reverse engineering with basic modifications. The listed books should help with that! I think Practical Malware Analysis really is a good start, even for that. When looking at malware you also try to find important functionality and the book teaches you how to get there quickly. > I'd also like to have a go at modifying…
on “IDA cybersecurity software provider Hex-Rays acquired” ↗…experiences getting started in malware analysis rather than microcontroller assembler, but it might be useful to you :) I took an interest in malware analysis last autumn and cant recommend the book Practical Malware Analysis enough. It introduces the subject to a beginner including the wide variety of skills required and tools used. One of the best things about the book is the malware samples supplied for analysis at the…
on “Ask HN: Which Low-Cost Micro-controller is the Best for Learning Assembly?” ↗…though at the moment I'm making more headway with Lena's (linked above on tuts4you). This is probably because I'm still new to assembly language and Olly/idb. The canonical intro book I recommend is Practical Malware Analysis (No Starch), with their debugging and IDA books as supplements :) http://www.nostarch.com/malware
on “R4ndom’s Beginning Reverse Engineering Tutorials” ↗I am interested in learning RE also. After some search on the internet I found that most people recommend Practical Malware Analysis book. I started reading it, it's seems pretty interesting. I didn't get to the RE part yet but from looking at it seems to be pretty good for beginner.
on “Reverse Engineering Snapchat: Obfuscation Techniques” ↗'Practical Malware Analysis' was required reading for all RE candidates at my previous job. It's very windows focused but teaches skills that are (somewhat) easily transferable.
on “Using Ghidra to Reverse Engineer Super Monkey Ball for GameCube” ↗