Malware Forensics Field Guide for Windows Systems is a handy reference that shows students the essential tools needed to do computer forensics analysis at the crime scene. It is part of Syngress Digital Forensics Field Guides, a series of companions for any digital and computer forensic student, investigator or analyst.
Each Guide is a toolkit, with checklists for specific tasks, case studies of difficult situations, and expert analyst tips that will aid in recovering data from digital media that will be used in criminal prosecution.
This book collects data from all methods of electronic data storage and transfer devices, including computers, laptops, PDAs and the images, spreadsheets and other types of files stored on these devices.
It is specific for Windows-based systems, the largest running OS in the world.
The authors are world-renowned leaders in investigating and analyzing malicious code. Chapters cover malware incident response – volatile data collection and examination on a live Windows system; analysis of physical and process memory dumps for malware artifacts; post-mortem forensics – discovering and extracting malware and associated artifacts from Windows systems; legal considerations; file identification and profiling initial analysis of a suspect file on a Windows system; and analysis of a suspect program.
Malware (a portmanteau of malicious software) is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user’s computer security and privacy. Researchers tend to classify malware into one or more sub-types (i.e. computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, rogue software, wipers and keyloggers).
Malware poses serious problems to individuals and businesses on the Internet. According to Symantec‘s 2018 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), malware variants number has increased to 669,947,865 in 2017, which is twice as many malware variants as in 2016. Cybercrime, which includes malware attacks as well as other crimes committed by computer, was predicted to cost the world economy US$ 6 trillion in 2021, and is increasing at a rate of 15% per year. Since 2021, malware has been designed to target computer systems that run critical infrastructure such as the electricity distribution network.
The defense strategies against malware differ according to the type of malware but most can be thwarted by installing antivirus software, firewalls, applying regular patches, securing networks from intrusion, having regular backups and isolating infected systems. Malware can be designed to evade antivirus software detection algorithms.
