Thoughts Concerning Cryptography, Privacy, Data, and the Future

Lately I’ve been mulling over some thoughts concerning the future of security, privacy, and how it relates to data records. This post will present some ideas for you if you do not know where to start when it comes to cyber security or are looking for ideas on how to keep you and your family’s…


EquationGroup DoubleFantasy Part 1

Introduction EquationGroup has a malware called DoubleFantasy. Sounded interesting, so I decided to go ahead and attack it and find out what it’s all about. Supposedly Kaspersky said about EquationGroup, The Equation Group is probably one of the most sophisticated cyber attack groups in the world; and they are the most advanced threat actor we…


What is a Malware Analyst and Why will your organization need one very soon?

Introduction I predict within the next 5-10 years, the number of malware analyst, researcher, and reverse-engineer jobs is going to skyrocket. So what is a malware analyst, malware researcher, and/or malware reverse-engineer in the first place and why will they be in high demand? What is a Malware Analyst/Researcher/Reverse Engineer? First of all, the slashes…


Malware Tips for Non-Tech folks

Today I recorded this video that gives some beginner tips on how to stay safe from malware, adware, spyware, and crapware. If you find your computer getting bogged down with unknown software, ads, toolbars, and other junk, this video is for you. Feel free to post any questions in the comments and I’ll answer.


Privacy – The problem and the solution

Introduction You may or may not know that privacy as we’ve known it is currently under an attack bigger than any the human race has ever seen before, other than perhaps the great flood. Companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and most modern tech companies are recording as much about you as possible. Why? Because it…


The Ultimate List of Services which Respect your Privacy

Herein is a list of services which make an effort to respect privacy and do not sell your data. This list is starting out small and will continue to grow as I receive suggestions and find time to locate more services as well. I will not be posting services that I have not personally checked…


Hiding from disassembly analysis

There are several patterns that I’ve picked up on in which malware authors try to hide function calls, a large one being by using other function calls. To analysts who are experienced with the operating system’s API and system calls, this is not a big deal, but to those who are not, they are effective…


PortEx Analyzer

I wanted to mention a tool that I’ve found very helpful in analyzing Portable Executable (PE) files: PortEx Analyzer by Karsten Hahn. Actually, the first very noticeable difference between this program and so many others is the level of documentation. PortEx Analyzer is fully documented by Hahn and has a thorough readme and wiki as…


Inline Hook of a System Call via AppInit_DLLs Part 2– The Hook

For an introduction, please refer to Part 1 of this analysis. The Installer Still inside the same Lab11-02.dll as before, we can return back to DllMain and locate one more subroutine call, which takes us to the hook code, but this is incomplete knowledge since we haven’t yet seen how the hook even gets installed…


Inline Hook of a System Call via AppInit_DLLs Part 1 – Decryption of XOR Cipher

  Introduction This will be a 2 part post. In part 1 I will demonstrate deciphering a simple XOR encryption used in Lab 11-02 of Practical Malware Analysis by Sikowski. This lab also demonstrates a technique called inline hooking, where malware installs itself onto the system as a code library file (DLL) and then redirects…