Understanding Evil: How to Reverse Engineer Malware

This article introduces the fundamentals of malware reverse engineering to strengthen defender posture, covering safe, isolated analysis environments; key tools like Ghidra, IDA Pro, Sysinternals, Wireshark, CAPE, and YARA; and a methodical workflow for analyzing samples. It highlights common adversary techniques that hinder analysis—polymorphic/metamorphic code, anti-analysis/packing/obfuscation, and VM/sandbox evasion—and briefly references a Qakbot case study to illustrate practical value.