Aat Shadewa, Malware Expert from Virology.info gave lecture on Malware Analysis Workshop
in Swiss German University on 15 May 2010

SGU, 11 June 2010. Among the ever increasing number of security threats to the Internet, malicious software (malware) has become the largest threat to Internet users today. The way malware works has changed over the years and what worked before is no longer effective today. Hence, it is important to be able to determine whether any binaries are truly harmful without relying on automated scanning engines. To create interest and train IT students, the IT faculty organized a unique full day event, MALWARE ANALYSIS WORKHOP, on 15th May 2010, in building B, Swiss German University, where students had an opportunity to learn how to perform malware analysis using the readily available open source tools.

This was thanks to Pak Aat Shadewa, a malware expert from www.virologi.info who was willing to share his knowledge of how to perform so called static analysis to a fully-packed class of students. He explained how malware has evolved from a simple non-disturbing malware to a truly malicious software that wipes out the entire data in the hard disk. Students had a chance to learn how to work with virtual machines to counter these malwares when analysis is being carried out. They also learned about tools, such as OllyDbg, to perform static analysis since no source code is provided with the sample binaries.

In the remaining time, students learned how to create virus and antivirus programs to counteract these malwares. Finally, this workshop also helped our IT students who had been researching in the area of Malware in our recently established SGU Malware Research Lab.

Overall, all of the students were very satisfied with the workshop and are asking when they will get a chance to learn more about malwares. This workshop was a part of the IT faculty program to raise awareness as well as building the IT security muscles internally.

Pictures can be observe at Picasa Web Albums

Souza Nurafrianto Windiartono,
SGU Information Technology Faculty