Virus obfuscation techniques (2024)

FAQs

Virus obfuscation techniques? ›

Compression, encryption, and encoding are some of the most common obfuscation methods used by threat actors. Multiple methods are often used in tandem to evade a wider variety of cyber security tools at the initial point of intrusion.

Compression, encryption, and encoding are some of the most common obfuscation methods used by threat actors. Multiple methods are often used in tandem to evade a wider variety of cyber security tools at the initial point of intrusion.

Obfuscation is an umbrella term for a variety of processes that transform data into another form in order to protect sensitive information or personal data. Three of the most common techniques used to obfuscate data are encryption, tokenization, and data masking.

Malware obfuscation is the act of making the code of a program hard to discover or understand—by both humans and computers—but without changing how the program works. The goal is not just to make a program unreadable, but to hide its presence completely.

Additionally, watch for techniques like steganography, where malicious code is hidden within seemingly harmless files, and the use of encryption to conceal communication between malware and its command and control server.

Packers and Crypters: Packers and crypters are techniques used in malware to evade signature-based detection. Packers are tools that compress and encrypt the malware's code, creating a new executable that requires a specific unpacking routine to be executed, before revealing the original malicious code.

Code obfuscation tools such as ProGuard, DexGuard, and ConfuserEx are vital for protecting software against reverse engineering. Obfuscation matters because it obscures code logic and structure, making it difficult for attackers to decipher and exploit vulnerabilities.

The results show that it is possible to reverse engineer obfuscated code but some parts. Obfuscation does protect the code, as all the variable names are changed and every unused method are removed, as well as some methods changed to non-con- ventional ways to program.

Data masking, encryption, and tokenization are three common data obfuscation techniques. Each type has strengths in protecting against destructive malware. Familiarizing yourself with data obfuscation techniques will help you protect your sensitive data—and educate you in case obfuscation is used against you.

How to make code unreadable? ›

A tool called an obfuscator will automatically convert straightforward source code into a program that works the same way, but is more difficult to read and understand. Unfortunately, malicious code writers also use these methods to prevent their attack mechanisms from being detected by antimalware tools.

Conventionally, malware is written in C/C++.

Another concealment method is called Least Significant Bit (LSB) steganography, which involves hiding malicious code or data within the pixels of an image. It involves converting the malicious code into a binary format. In turn, the binary data is embedded into the least significant bits of the pixel values.

Malware authors can evade signature-based detection by changing the code of their malware so that it no longer matches any known signatures. This can be done by using a variety of techniques, such as obfuscation, encryption, or polymorphism.

Machine Learning Behavioral Analysis

They do this by observing file behavior, network traffic, frequency of processes, deployment patterns, and more. Over time, these algorithms can learn what “bad” files look like, making it possible to detect new and unknown malware.

A dead-code insertion is a simple approach for changing the appearance of a program while maintaining its functionality. NOP is an example of such a command. The original code is easily obfuscated by inserting NOP instructions.