
Indeed, a memory dump does not work because the IAT is not complete. This protection increases the difficulty of unpacking the malware. During runtime the IAT is resolved dynamically and used by the program when necessary. The IAT references functions that are used by a program and are available by the Windows API. Other packers act as a proxy and protect the import address table (IAT). The analyst has to retrieve it to recover the original file. In these cases the original entry point, the memory address where the program starts, is relocated in the packed section. Once the file is running, the decompression stub stored in the packed file will decompress the packed section. The original file is passed in the packer routine and stored in a packed section in the new.
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Advanced malware coded by organized cybercriminal groups, however, employ custom packers or implement complex protection inside malicious files.įor packers that encrypt or compress a file, a stub (a piece of code that contains the decompression or decryption routine) acts as a loader, which executes before the malware.Ī packer compresses or encrypts data. It is more convenient for attackers to use a packer rather than to directly implement protection inside the code. The complexity of packers varies.Ī packer can act simply as armor to protect the binary. Unpacking malware is the first challenge to understanding a threat. Packers can both make it harder for security staff to identify the behavior of malware and increase the amount of time required for an analysis. (Packers can also be used for legitimate ends, for example, to protect a program against cracking or copying.) All these tricks decrease the chance of detection by antimalware products and help to avoid analysis by security researchers.


One of the most popular methods is to employ a packer, a tool that compresses, encrypts, and/or modifies a malicious file’s format. Malware authors use a number of tricks to avoid detection and analysis.
