This guide explains common malware types, their propagation methods, payloads, persistence and evasive techniques, and connects those concepts to web app and API compromises. It emphasizes capability-focused detection and provides practical mini-cases, pseudocode of typical behavior, and guidance for defensive priorities.
Malware Taxonomy and Capabilities — A Chaotic but Helpful Field Guide "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the sandbox." — Probably Sun Tzu, if he did incident response
You already know how attackers poke at web apps, enumerate APIs, and exploit sloppy OAuth flows because we just finished digging into automated crawling, endpoint discovery, and devs forgetting secure SDLC is a thing. Now we zoom out: what kinds of malware are attackers dropping after they get a fo...
Why this matters (without the boring slog) Web app flaws give attackers entry. Malware is the toolkit they bring to exploit that entry for long-term gain. APIs and tokens you skimp on become relay points for command-and-control, data exfiltration, and persistence. Understanding malware taxono...
The Taxonomy: Types, not excuses Here’s a compact table to stop calling everything a 'virus' like it’s 1998. Type Propagation Typical Payloads/Capabilities Stealth & Persistence Why you care (example) Virus Requires user action (infects files) Modify files, load malic...
Capabilities — What malware actually does (and why defenders lose sleep) Most modern malware is modular. Think of it as a Swiss Army knife where the attacker picks the blades they need: Reconnaissance — Enumerates environment, processes, network topology, cloud metadata. Credential Harvesting...
Real-world mini-cases (because theory is boring without drama) A stolen service account key from a CI system lets a Trojan deploy a server-side downloader that becomes a backdoor. Stages: exploit -> dropper -> downloader -> RAT -> data theft. A misconfigured OAuth flow grants refres...
Contrasting perspectives: noisier attacks vs stealth ops Noisy attacks (worms, many ransomware campaigns): Loud, fast, easier to detect, often opportunistic. Stealth attacks (APT-like RATs, fileless espionage): Slow, tailored, focused on persistence and data theft. Harder to detect and common i...
Quick primer: malware behavior pseudocode (so it feels tangible) while (alive) { if (!has_privilege) escalate_privilege(); enumerate_environment(); harvest_credentials(); if (need_more_stages) download_next_stage(); if (persistence_not_installed) install_persistence(); check_C2_and_execute_...
Closing: Key takeaways and the path forward Classification is not just academic : knowing what type of malware you face shapes your detection and response. Focus on capabilities : Recon, persistence, credential theft, C2, and exfiltration are the pillars of malicious action. Link it back to A...
10 study modes available based on your content