Malware for Dummies

What is Malware?

Malware is a type of software specifically designed to perform malicious actions such as gaining unauthorized access to a machine or stealing sensitive data from a machine. The term "malware" is often associated with illegal or criminal conduct but it can also be used by ethical hackers such as penetration testers and red teamers for an authorized security assessment of an organization.

Trojan Example:

I want to showcase a basic Python Script that mimics a keylogger for the sake of understanding one kind of malware that is prevalent

Procedure:

• Install Python 3.10

🚨 python 3.11 or greater there seems to have issues with one of package dependencies and haven’t tested for versions below 3.10

• I want you to run this basic script, so that you have an idea of what exactly are we after, with mal dev, so that it gives you a better understanding of future guides

https://github.com/kol-mikaelson/carbon

• then run the following in terminal

pip install pyWinhook

• Then execute the .py file

• Try to open user applications such as a browser or type something on your keyboard, the script should record everything for a period of 1 minute before showing it back to you

CONCLUSION:

The point of this guide has been to kind of showcase how common malware works, if you’re able to understand what’s happening in the code, that’s great, otherwise don’t worry, we’ll try and explore it during the course of other guides.