A Crash Course in Assembly and Programming Basics

Before diving deeper into the malware world, we need to have a complete understanding of the core of the machines we are analyzing malware on. For reverse engineering purposes, it makes sense to focus largely on the architecture and the operating system (OS) it supports. Of course, multiple devices and modules comprise a system, but it is mainly these two that define a set of tools and approaches that are used during the analysis. The physical representation of any architecture is a processor. A processor is like the heart of any smart device or computer in that it keeps it alive.

In this chapter, we will cover the basics of the most widely used architectures, from the well-known x86 and x64 Instruction Set Architectures (ISAs) to solutions that power multiple mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which are often misused by malware families, such as Mirai. This will set the tone for your journey into malware analysis, as static...