In this lab, we investigate a sophisticated malware infection targeting a financial organization. The organization detected unauthorized access attempts to sensitive financial records, raising concerns about a potential breach. As a malware analyst, your objective is to dissect the malicious sample, uncover its behavior, and identify its techniques to understand how it operates and maintains persistence within the system.
This analysis involves utilizing threat intelligence tools such as VirusTotal to examine the malware’s execution patterns, interactions with system components, and network activity. A structured approach will be taken to explore how the malware accesses system resources, executes evasive code, drops additional files, and establishes persistence. Additionally, by investigating its network communications, we can determine whether it reaches out to external infrastructure, potentially revealing its command and control mechanisms.
By the end of this walkthrough, you will gain a comprehensive understanding of the techniques employed by this malware, how it manipulates the Windows environment, and the necessary steps to detect and mitigate similar threats. This exercise will enhance your skills in malware forensics and threat intelligence—key areas for cybersecurity professionals combating advanced threats in real-world environments.