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Mastering Malware Analysis

You're reading from   Mastering Malware Analysis The complete malware analyst's guide to combating malicious software, APT, cybercrime, and IoT attacks

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jun 2019
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781789610789
Length 562 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
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Authors (2):
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Alexey Kleymenov Alexey Kleymenov
Author Profile Icon Alexey Kleymenov
Alexey Kleymenov
Amr Thabet Amr Thabet
Author Profile Icon Amr Thabet
Amr Thabet
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Toc

Table of Contents (18) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Section 1: Fundamental Theory FREE CHAPTER
2. A Crash Course in CISC/RISC and Programming Basics 3. Section 2: Diving Deep into Windows Malware
4. Basic Static and Dynamic Analysis for x86/x64 5. Unpacking, Decryption, and Deobfuscation 6. Inspecting Process Injection and API Hooking 7. Bypassing Anti-Reverse Engineering Techniques 8. Understanding Kernel-Mode Rootkits 9. Section 3: Examining Cross-Platform Malware
10. Handling Exploits and Shellcode 11. Reversing Bytecode Languages: .NET, Java, and More 12. Scripts and Macros: Reversing, Deobfuscation, and Debugging 13. Section 4: Looking into IoT and Other Platforms
14. Dissecting Linux and IoT Malware 15. Introduction to macOS and iOS Threats 16. Analyzing Android Malware Samples 17. Other Books You May Enjoy

Kernel mode versus user mode

You have already seen a number of user-mode processes on your computer (all the applications you see are running in user mode), modifying files, connecting to the internet, and performing lots of activities. However, you might be surprised to know that user-mode applications don't actually have privileges to do all of this. In fact, they don't have the privileges to do anything except modify their own memory (without allocating or changing permissions).

For any process to create a file or connect to a domain, it needs to send a request to the kernel mode in order to perform that action. This request is done through what is known as a system call, and this system call switches to kernel mode to perform this action (that is, if the permission is granted). Kernel mode and user mode are not only supported by the OS (or software restrictions)—they are also supported by the processors through protection rings (or hardware restrictions).

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