Hypervisor-assisted dynamic malware analysis

Abstract Malware analysis is a task of utmost importance in cyber-security. Two approaches exist for malware analysis: static and dynamic. Modern malware uses an abundance of techniques to evade both dynamic and static analysis tools. Current dynamic analysis solutions either make modifications to t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Roee S. Leon, Michael Kiperberg, Anat Anatey Leon Zabag, Nezer Jacob Zaidenberg
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2021-06-01
Series:Cybersecurity
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s42400-021-00083-9
Description
Summary:Abstract Malware analysis is a task of utmost importance in cyber-security. Two approaches exist for malware analysis: static and dynamic. Modern malware uses an abundance of techniques to evade both dynamic and static analysis tools. Current dynamic analysis solutions either make modifications to the running malware or use a higher privilege component that does the actual analysis. The former can be easily detected by sophisticated malware while the latter often induces a significant performance overhead. We propose a method that performs malware analysis within the context of the OS itself. Furthermore, the analysis component is camouflaged by a hypervisor, which makes it completely transparent to the running OS and its applications. The evaluation of the system’s efficiency suggests that the induced performance overhead is negligible.
ISSN:2523-3246