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Malware analysis is an essential part of security researcher's work. But working with malicious samples can be dangerous — it requires specialized tools to record their activity, and a secure environment to prevent unintended damage. However, manual lab setup and configuration can prove to be a laborious and time-consuming process. In this article, we'll look at 4 ways to create a reverse engineering lab, discuss how to save time, and, potentially, improve the detection rate using a cloud service, and a recommended list of tools for a comprehensive setup. What is a malware analysis lab? In essence, a malware analysis lab provides a safe, isolated space for examining malware. The setup can range from a straightforward virtual machine using VirtualBox to a more intricate network of interconnected machines and actual networking hardware. But in this article, we'll look at building a lab tailored for static analysis, so what we will need is a secure environment where we

Unknown malware presents a significant cybersecurity threat and can cause serious damage to organizations and individuals alike. When left undetected, malicious code can gain access to confidential information, corrupt data, and allow attackers to gain control of systems. Find out how to avoid these circumstances and detect unknown malicious behavior efficiently.  Challenges of new threats' detection While known malware families are more predictable and can be detected more easily, unknown threats can take on a variety of forms, causing a bunch of challenges for their detection: Malware developers use polymorphism, which enables them to modify the malicious code to generate unique variants of the same malware.  There is malware that is still not identified and doesn't have any rulesets for detection. Some threats can be Fully UnDetectable (FUD) for some time and challenge perimeter security.  The code is often encrypted, making it difficult to detect by signature-based

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Orcus  is a Remote Access Trojan with some distinctive characteristics. The RAT allows attackers to create plugins and offers a robust core feature set that makes it quite a dangerous malicious program in its class. RAT is quite a stable type that always makes it to the top. ANY.RUN's top malware types in 2022 That's why you'll definitely come across this type in your practice, and the Orcus family specifically. To simplify your analysis, we have collected 3 lifehacks you should take advantage of. Here we go. What is Orcus RAT?  Definition . Orcus RAT is a type of malicious software program that enables remote access and control of computers and networks. It is a type of Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that has been used by attackers to gain access to and control computers and networks. Capabilities . Once downloaded onto a computer or network, it begins to execute its malicious code, allowing the attacker to gain access and control. It is capable of stealing data, conductin

Based on the findings of Malwarebytes' Threat Review for 2022, 40 million Windows business computers' threats were detected in 2021. In order to combat and avoid these kinds of attacks, malware analysis is essential. In this article, we will break down the goal of malicious programs' investigation and how to do malware analysis with a sandbox. What is malware analysis?  Malware analysis is a process of studying a malicious sample. During the study, a researcher's goal is to understand a malicious program's type, functions, code, and potential dangers. Receive the information organization needs to respond to the intrusion. Results of analysis that you get: how malware works: if you investigate the code of the program and its algorithm, you will be able to stop it from infecting the whole system. characteristics of the program: improve detection by using data on malware like its family, type, version, etc. what is the goal of malware: trigger the sample's

Before hunting malware, every researcher needs to find a system where to analyze it. There are several ways to do it: build your own environment or use third-party solutions. Today we will walk through all the steps of creating a custom malware sandbox where you can perform a proper analysis without infecting your computer. And then compare it with a ready-made service. Why do you need a malware sandbox?  A sandbox allows detecting cyber threats and analyzing them safely. All information remains secure, and a suspicious file can't access the system. You can monitor malware processes, identify their patterns and investigate behavior. Before setting up a sandbox, you should have a clear goal of what you want to achieve through the lab.  There are two ways how to organize your working space for analysis: Custom sandbox.  Made from scratch by an analyst on their own, specifically for their needs. A turnkey solution.  A versatile service with a range of configurations to meet yo

Are you looking to becoming a malware analyst? Then continue reading to discover how to gain the training you need and start a career in malware analysis career. Did you know that new malware is released every seven seconds? As more and more systems become reliant on the internet, the proliferation of malware becomes increasingly destructive. Once upon a time, a computer virus might cause considerable inconvenience, but its reach might have been limited to the handful of systems connected to the internet. Today, with every home, factory, and institution online, it's theoretically possible for malware to shut down an entire nation. That's where malware analysis comes in. Malware analysis is the process of isolating and reverse-engineering malicious software. Malware analysts draw on a wide range of skills, from programming to digital forensics, to identify and understand different types of malware. From there, they can design security solutions to protect computers from sim

Emotet is one of the most dangerous and widespread malware threats active today. Ever since its discovery in 2014—when Emotet was a standard credential stealer and banking Trojan, the malware has evolved into a modular, polymorphic platform for distributing other kinds of computer viruses. Being constantly under development, Emotet updates itself regularly to improve stealthiness, persistence, and add new spying capabilities. This notorious Trojan is one of the most frequently malicious programs found in the wild. Usually, it is a part of a phishing attack, email spam that infects PCs with malware and spreads among other computers in the network. If you'd like to find out more about the malware, collect IOCs, and get fresh samples, check the following article in the Malware trends tracker , the service with dynamic articles. Emotet is the most uploaded malware throughout the past few years. Here below is the rating of uploads to ANY.RUN service in 2019, where users ran over

Building a security team is a necessity for organizations of all industries and sizes. It makes selecting the right person for the job a critical task in which testing candidates' domain knowledge is a core component of the hiring process. A common practice is for each organization to put together a dedicated set of questions for each role. Today, Cynet launches the Cybersecurity Skill Tests website to optimize the hiring process with an automated online questionnaire form for each such position. Cynet has assembled a vast question pool with hundreds of dedicated questions for the 6 leading cybersecurity positions (see below), covering all aspects of each selected role. A selection algorithm is used to generate a set of 25 questions in increasing difficulty level, which touches all the important knowledge areas of each candidate's position. No two questionnaires are the same to ensure the answers' reliability. How does this work in practice? Following the

The United States' National Security Agency (NSA) is planning to release its internally developed reverse engineering tool for free at the upcoming RSA security conference 2019 that will be held in March in San Francisco. The existence of the framework, dubbed GHIDRA, was first publicly revealed by WikiLeaks in CIA Vault 7 leaks, but the tool once again came to light after Senior NSA Adviser Robert Joyce announced to publicly release the tool for free in his RSA Conference session description. Reverse engineering tool is a disassembler, for example, IDA-Pro, that help researchers identify certain portions of a program to see how they work by reading information like its processor instructions, instruction lengths, and more. GHIDRA is a Java-based reverse engineering framework that features a graphical user interface (GUI) and has been designed to run on a variety of platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems, and also supports a variety of processor

Looking for an automated malware analysis software? Something like a 1-click solution that doesn't require any installation or configuration…a platform that can scale up your research time… technology that can provide data-driven explanations… well, your search is over! Israeli cybersecurity and malware researchers today at Black Hat conference launch a revolutionary machine learning and artificial intelligence-powered malware researcher platform that aims to help users identify unknown malware samples before they strike. Dubbed SNDBOX , the free online automated malware analysis system allows anyone to upload a file and access its static, dynamic and network analysis in an easy-to-understand graphical interface. The loss due to malware attacks is reported to be more than $10 billion every year, and it's increasing. Despite the significant improvement of cyber security mechanisms, malware is still a powerful and effective tool used by hackers to compromise systems because of