Network Forensics: Tracking Hackers through Cyberspace

Chapter 12. Malware Forensics

“andy; I’m just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry”

—String found within the W32/MyDoom self-mailer worm code, circa 2004¹

Malware is big business. As computers themselves have evolved to be increasingly networked, so too has malicious software, or “malware.” Many people have remarked upon the strong analogies between malware and natural organisms, from self-reproductive techniques to the emergence of evolution. In real life, viruses, parasites, and bacteria spread by piggybacking on the normal mechanisms that hosts use to communicate and exchange resources. Similarly, as personal computers evolved from isolated word processors into complex network-oriented communications devices, the strategies and behaviors ...