TryHackMe writeup: Basic Static Analysis

An application of static analysis in the reverse engineering of software to study the behaviour of malware

TryHackMe has published a walkthrough room discussing the static analysis of malware (“tryhackme” and “umairalizafar” 2023). This room discusses techniques like basic and advanced string analysis, fingerprinting malware, Portable Executable header analysis, and more. In this article, I will discuss my experience analysing neutralised malware samples.

Base Image: Gatô et al (2002)

Contents at a glance

1. Background
2. Procedure
3. Discussion
4. End matter
5. References

Background

Malicious software, or malware, is a serious problem for the internet (see Goodin 2023; Goodin 2022; Greenberg 2023; Poulsen 2009; Hurler 2022; Ghafur et al 2019; Hruska 2001). One way to combat malware is to understand how it works, and a way to understand how it works is with the tools of static analysis and reverse code engineering. “tryhackme” and “umairalizafar” (2023) provide a tutorial room on how to perform static analysis on malware samples that have been neutralised.