Fundamentals of Malware Analysis Of Malicious Documents

A Beginner's Course on Analyzing Malicious PDF and Microsoft Office Documents Using Remnux and Windows Virtual Machines

What you'll learn:
Analyzing Malicious Documents
Analyzing Malicious PDF documents
Analyzing Malicious Microsoft documents
Install Remnux Virtual Machine
Extracting document Meta-Data
Basic Linux Commands Used in Malware Analysis
Extracting Embedded Objects and Javascript from PDF documents
Extracting VBA Macro Scripts from Office Documents
De-obfuscating Javascript and VBA scripts
Automating Analysis of Documents
Viewing and Debugging Malicious Office Macros
Identifying Maker and Origin of Malicious Documents
Using Yara to Identify Malicious Patterns and Signatures
Analyzing Open Office XML Format Documents
Analyzing Structured Storage Format Documents
Estimating age and date of document creation
Analyzing powershell scripts
Detecting Malware Artifacts and Indicators of Compromise
and more…

Requirements
Windows PC
Interest in Malware Analysis
Basic Linux knowledge helpful but not strictly necessary

Description
Did you know that you could infect your computer just by opening a pdf or microsoft office document? If that came as a shocker for you then you need to take this course. Documents are one of the main vector of attacks for malware authors because of their widespread use. Everyone uses documents to create reports, memos and articles. In fact everything we do for communication involves the use of documents. That is why this is a very popular way to infect computers. Documents are used as the first stage of a malware attack. Embedded in documents are scripts that will download a second stage payload consisting of additional malware, eg ransomware, remote access tools and more.

In this course, you will learn how to check and analyze malicious pdf and office documents for signs of malicious artifacts and indicators of compromise. This is a beginners course and targeted to those who are absolutely new to this field. I will take you from zero to proficient level in analyzing malicious documents. You will learn using plenty of practical walk-throughs. We will learn the basic knowledge and skills in analyzing documents. All the needed tools and where to download them will be provided. By the end of this course, you will have the fundamentals of malware analysis of documents under your belt to further your studies in this field. Even if you do not intend to take up malware analysis as a career, still the knowledge and skills gained would enable you to check documents for dangers and protect yourself from these attacks.

We will use remnux and windows virtual machine. Remnux is a Debian-based linux distribution that contains all the necessary tools for malware analysis. Some background on linux would be helpful but not strictly necessary. We will also install document debuggers in a windows virtual machine. Then, I will show you how to get started with the very basic tools in remnux and windows. All the essential theory will be covered but kept to the minimum. The emphasis is on practicals and lab exercises.

Who this course is for
Beginners to Malware Analysis
Students embarking on career path to become Malware Analysts
Anyone eager to learn how to know if a document is malicious