The Threat Intel & Malware Analyst's Roadmap
The Threat Intel & Malware Analyst’s Roadmap
I’ve been working in threat intelligence and malware analysis for 7 years, and people often ask me where to start. What should they learn? What skills do they need?
This is my answer. A structured path covering everything from basics to advanced techniques. If you’re a SOC analyst wanting to level up, a developer curious about the malicious side, or someone transitioning into malware analysis, this will give you direction.
This blog is adapted from a training program I’ve developed over the years. I’m not a guru, just sharing what I’ve learned. AI was only used for formatting this post.
What You’ll Learn
After going through this path, you’ll be able to:
- Safely analyze malware without compromising your systems
- Do static and dynamic analysis on various file types
- Reverse engineer binaries with industry tools
- Write detection rules and extract indicators of compromise
- Understand attacker techniques and contribute to threat intelligence
Training Modules
Module 1: 📖 Introduction
Before the technical stuff, understand why this work matters:
- Why blue teaming matters
- What is malware analysis and reverse engineering
- Today’s attack landscape
- Understanding digital threats
- What doors this skillset opens
Module 2: 🖥️ Building Your Lab
A safe, isolated environment is essential.
- Why virtual machines matter (isolation, snapshots)
- How VMs work (hypervisors, virtualization)
- Installing VMWare and Windows 10 VM
- VM configuration hardening
- FLARE-VM setup (the standard malware analysis toolkit)
- Windows environment tweaks for better analysis
- OPSEC and threat models for analysts
Module 3: 🔍 Static Analysis
Analyze samples without running them. This is your first step.
📂 File Triage
- What is file triage
- File type identification (MIMETYPE, DIE, Magika, magic bytes)
- Handling unknown file types
- AV detection naming conventions
- Indicators of compromise (IOCs)
- Hash types (MD5, SHA-256, SSDEEP fuzzy hashing, TLSH)
- Online sandboxes (VirusTotal, Threat.Zone, Any.Run, Joe Sandbox, VMRay, Hybrid Analysis)
- Clean file analysis and benign elimination
- Binary diffing and certificate inspection
🔐 Cryptography Basics
You need to understand encryption to analyze modern malware:
- Symmetric vs asymmetric encryption
- Public and private keys
- How SSL/TLS works
- Common algorithms: RC4, DES, AES, RSA
- Understanding entropy (detecting encrypted or compressed data)
📦 PE File Format
The foundation of Windows malware analysis:
- PE format deep dive
- MS-DOS stub, COFF header, timestamps
- Optional header and section table
- Resources, icons, debug paths, PDB files
- Windows libraries (static vs dynamic linking)
- Headers and sections
- RVA, VA, and file offsets
- Import Address Table (x86 vs x64 differences)
📧 Email Analysis
Email is still the top way attackers get in:
- EML format basics
- Email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
- Extracting malicious files, links, and attachments
- Content disarm and reconstruction
📄 Document Analysis
Macro malware and malicious PDFs are everywhere:
- PDF and MS Office file formats
- Detecting malicious macros and JavaScript
- Didier Stevens toolkit (oletools, pdfid, pdf-parser…)
- Macro deobfuscation techniques
- Real world malicious examples and VBA stomping
⚙️ Assembly and Disassembly
The core skill for reverse engineering:
- Assembly language basics
- Disassembly vs decompilation
- CPU architecture and registers
- Instruction sets (x86/x64)
- Calling conventions (stdcall, cdecl, fastcall)
- Windows system internals
- IDA Pro, Ghidra, Binary Ninja (industry-standard disassemblers)
- C language and disassembler theory
- PE and ELF binary analysis
- Shellcode reverse engineering
- Identifying encryption algorithms in code
💻 Managed Code Analysis
Not everything needs assembly. Some malware can be decompiled:
- Compiled languages with runtime (.NET, Java)
- Interpreted languages (Python, Ruby, JavaScript)
- .NET analysis with dnSpy and ILSpy
- Deobfuscation with de4dot
- Python and Java decompiling (pycdc, uncompyle6, jadx)
🔎 YARA Rules
The analyst’s signature language:
- How YARA works
- Writing effective rules
- Automatic rule generation (yarGen, YARA-Signator)
- Scanning workflows
Module 4: ▶️ Dynamic Analysis
Run the malware and watch what it does.
🛠️ Sysinternals Tools
Essential Windows analysis tools:
- Process Explorer
- Process Monitor
- Autoruns
- Tips and hunting techniques
🌐 Network Analysis
Capture and decode malicious traffic:
- Wireshark
- Fiddler
- Hunting C2 traffic patterns
- Identifying malicious network behavior
- Writing Suricata Rules
🐛 Debugging
Step through malware execution:
- Debugger basics (x64dbg, WinDbg)
- Debugger windows and workflow
- Breakpoints (software, hardware, memory)
- Syscalls (direct and indirect)
- Patching bytes with crackme challenges
- Memory dumping (Scylla, Pe-sieve)
- PE structure rebasing with PE-Bear
- Disabling ASLR
💉 Process Injection
How malware hides in legitimate processes:
- Reflective DLL injection
- PE injection
- Process hollowing
- APC and Early Bird injection
- Detection tools (PE-Sieve, Moneta, Hollows Hunter)
🥷 Evasion Techniques
Know what you’re up against:
- Anti-VM (detecting virtual environments)
- Anti-debug (debugger detection methods)
- Anti-sandbox (sandbox evasion tricks)
- Anti-reverse (obfuscation and anti-analysis)
- Bypassing these techniques
- Research sources for new evasion methods
📦 Packers and Unpacking
Most real malware is packed:
- How packers work
- Unpacking strategies
- Common packers (UPX, Themida, VMProtect)
- Emulation tools (Unicorn, Triton, Speakeasy)
- Writing emulation scripts in Python
- Malware config extraction
- Building custom config extractors
Module 5: 🕵️ Threat Intelligence and Hunting
Connect the dots and see the bigger picture.
- What is threat intelligence (beyond just IOCs)
- Intelligence types (strategic, tactical, operational)
- Cyber Kill Chain and MITRE ATT&CK (framework fundamentals)
- APT case studies (real-world adversary analysis)
- Writing and reading intelligence reports
- Threat hunting basics
- Incident response integration
- Infrastructure hunting and pivoting (Silentpush, GTI, Validin, Shodan, FOFA, Censys, Hunt.io)
Module 6: 🛡️ Detection Engineering
Turn your analysis into defense:
- Network detection with Suricata and Zeek
- IPS/IDS concepts
- Host-based detection (EDR, AV)
- Writing Sigma rules
Module 7: 📝 Reporting
Document your findings:
- Report standards (PDB)
- What to include (Intelligence standarts)
- Technical vs executive writing
- IOC sharing formats (STIX/TAXII)
🔬 Hands-On Labs
Theory means nothing without practice.
Lab 1: 🔒 Ransomware Analysis
- Full triage with IDA and x64dbg
- Understanding encryption implementations
- Finding encryption functions
- Writing a decryptor
Lab 2: 📥 Droppers and Stagers
- Understanding loader and dropper families
- Following the infection chain
- C2 infrastructure discovery
- Writing a complete analysis report
Lab 3: 🖥️ Infected Machine Analysis
- Artifact collection and triage
- Tool-assisted hunting (PE-Sieve, THOR, Moneta, Volatility)
- Benign file elimination
- Attack attribution using threat intel sources
- Malware removal and cleanup
Lab 4: 🕵️ Stealers and Loaders
- Network artifact detection
- Stealer family capabilities
- Function analysis in IDA
- Artifact recovery and analysis
📖 Recommended Resources
🎓 Courses
| Course | Provider |
|---|---|
| FOR610: Reverse Engineering Malware | SANS Institute |
| Zero 2 Automated | Vitali Kremez |
| Reverse Engineering Training | OALABS |
| From Zero to Hero | SentinelOne |
| Advanced Malware Analysis Techniques | Kaspersky |
📚 Books
- Practical Malware Analysis by Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig (the bible of malware analysis)
- Windows Internals, Parts 1 and 2 by Mark Russinovich
- Malwild / MDMZ by Cocomolenc
- Antivirus Bypass Techniques by Nir Yehoshua and Uriel Kosayev
- Malware Analysis and Detection Engineering by Abhijit Mohanta
- The Malware Analyst’s Cookbook by Michael Ligh
- Learning Malware Analysis by Monnappa K A
- Mastering Reverse Engineering by Reginald Wong
- The Art of Attribution by Timo Steffens
- The Art of Cyberwarfare by Jon DiMaggio
- Hunting Cyber Criminals by Vinny Troia
🏫 OpenSecurityTraining (Best Free Resource for Fundamentals)
- Introductory Intel x86: Architecture, Assembly, Applications, & Alliteration
- Malware Dynamic Analysis
- The Life of Binaries
- Intermediate Intel x86: Architecture, Assembly, Applications, & Alliteration
- Introduction to Reverse Engineering Software
- Reverse Engineering Malware
⊞ Windows Fundamentals
- Windows System Internals 1-2
- Operating System Concepts (the dinosaur book)
▶️ YouTube Channels
For practical malware analysis walkthroughs:
- OALabs - excellent reverse engineering content
- MalwareAnalysisForHedgehogs - beginner friendly
- GuidedHacking - RE and game hacking
📰 News and Updates
Stay current with these sources:
- Risky Biz News - Catalin Cimpanu
- The Grugq Newsletter
- Detection Engineering Weekly
- Hacker News
- InfoSec Sherpa
- Packet Storm Security
- This Week in 4n6
🏆 Certifications
| Certification | Organization | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| GREM (GIAC Reverse Engineering Malware) | SANS/GIAC | Malware analysis and RE |
| eCMAP (Certified Malware Analysis Professional) | INE Security | Practical malware analysis |
| GCTI (GIAC Cyber Threat Intelligence) | SANS/GIAC | Threat intelligence |
| GCFA (GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst) | SANS/GIAC | Forensics with malware focus |
Actually ,i don’t care about the certificates but it is necessary in the industry
🚀 Final Thoughts
Malware analysis and threat intelligence is a practical journey. The threat landscape changes constantly, and so must we. Start with the basics, build your lab, practice on real samples safely, and keep learning. Pick one module and start today. Download a sample from MalwareBazaar, fire up your FLARE-VM, and begin.
Have questions? Feel free to reach out.