An Inside Look into the Practice of Malware Analysis

Malware analysis aims to understand how malicious software carries out actions necessary for a successful attack and identify the possible impacts of the attack. While there has been substantial research focused on malware analysis and it is an important tool for practitioners in industry, the overall malware analysis process used by practitioners has not been studied. As a result, an understanding of common malware analysis workflows and their goals is lacking. A better understanding of these workflows could help identify new research directions that are impactful in practice. In order to better understand malware analysis processes, we present the results of a user study with 21 professional malware analysts with diverse backgrounds who work at 18 different companies. The study focuses on answering three research questions: (1) What are the different objectives of malware analysts in practice?, (2) What comprises a typical professional malware analyst workflow, and (3) When analysts decide to conduct dynamic analysis, what factors do they consider when setting up a dynamic analysis system? Based on participant responses, we propose a taxonomy of malware analysts and identify five common analysis workflows. We also identify challenges that analysts face during the different stages of their workflow. From the results of the study, we propose two potential directions for future research, informed by challenges described by the participants. Finally, we recommend guidelines for developers of malware analysis tools to consider in order to improve the usability of such tools.