4 ms·

Don't forget that unlike normal engineering, in the security world, malware, anticheat, cheats, DRM, etc all love to use the most obsecure, undocumented private

by ev1 5y ago

Don't forget that unlike normal engineering, in the security world, malware, anticheat, cheats, DRM, etc all love to use the most obsecure, undocumented private APIs, memory writing, all sorts of bizarre and unnecessary calls that would get you physically attacked in a code review.

markus_zhang 5y ago
How does anyone even approach these kinds of things? I mean I don't even know how to approach the much more legit business of say Windows Driver Development or Kernel programming which I'm pretty sure can lead to a fruitful malware re career. I mean there are definitely books out there such as "Windows System Programming" but it looks like a huge leap from your average programming job and even from the average Computer Science undergraduate education. I'm getting into a Graduate Diploma of Computer Science in my late 30s so it's more as a hobby than a career. While the department is out of top 200 of global ranking, I did get A+ on Comp Arch and am going into Advanced Programming which is based on C++. From the few malware reports that I read and can understand a bit, malwares in general don't deal with sophiscated algorithms,unlike in the business of Database Engine development. I only have a shallow deeling but they seem to care a lot more about hidden entries, side-channel attacks or even upstream attacks (Solarwind). And there are a LOT of vectors to approach. This further confused me so I figured it's better for me to concerntrate on the fundementals a.k.a. general programming (problem solving in general but not really focused on leetcode style questions), computer architecture and assembly language, compiler theory and operating system. How the operating system load and execute code and how does virtual memory and processes work, these kind of things. It feels very much like a detective job in which one needs to reverse engineer the motives and etc. In the meantime, although the detectives are not suppose to commit crimes (positive engineering a malware), he/she must learn all those tricks to fight the criminals.
- ev1 5y ago
  How often do you do this for fun? My coworker and I both got into this type of thing from game cheating when we were small children. I remember having a CEF (Cheat Engine forums) account way back in the single digit age group, angrily trying to figure out why I got banned for not hacking and just listening to music.
  - markus_zhang 5y ago
    yeah I remember doing this when I was young, but for now, actually, I can't think of anything that I have particular need for RE. Maybe that's the reason? BTW kudos for whatever you achieved :D

by ev1 5y ago

markus_zhang 5y ago

How does anyone even approach these kinds of things? I mean I don't even know how to approach the much more legit business of say Windows Driver Development or Kernel programming which I'm pretty sure can lead to a fruitful malware re career. I mean there are definitely books out there such as "Windows System Programming" but it looks like a huge leap from your average programming job and even from the average Computer Science undergraduate education. I'm getting into a Graduate Diploma of Computer Science in my late 30s so it's more as a hobby than a career. While the department is out of top 200 of global ranking, I did get A+ on Comp Arch and am going into Advanced Programming which is based on C++. From the few malware reports that I read and can understand a bit, malwares in general don't deal with sophiscated algorithms,unlike in the business of Database Engine development. I only have a shallow deeling but they seem to care a lot more about hidden entries, side-channel attacks or even upstream attacks (Solarwind). And there are a LOT of vectors to approach. This further confused me so I figured it's better for me to concerntrate on the fundementals a.k.a. general programming (problem solving in general but not really focused on leetcode style questions), computer architecture and assembly language, compiler theory and operating system. How the operating system load and execute code and how does virtual memory and processes work, these kind of things. It feels very much like a detective job in which one needs to reverse engineer the motives and etc. In the meantime, although the detectives are not suppose to commit crimes (positive engineering a malware), he/she must learn all those tricks to fight the criminals.

ev1 5y ago
How often do you do this for fun? My coworker and I both got into this type of thing from game cheating when we were small children. I remember having a CEF (Cheat Engine forums) account way back in the single digit age group, angrily trying to figure out why I got banned for not hacking and just listening to music.
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  yeah I remember doing this when I was young, but for now, actually, I can't think of anything that I have particular need for RE. Maybe that's the reason? BTW kudos for whatever you achieved :D