Ethical Hacker Community Forums

I read Mark Ludwig's "The Giant Black Book of computer viruses" a few years back.However it is obsolete now and there is no book to fill its place.Although there are good books on writing rootkits, there's no book that focus on writing computer viruses and worms (There is one by springer but it only touches the surface).I think its high time someone should write a book on it.I've started to write one that will focus on both windows and Linux platforms.

Please give me your opinion on the following points-

1.What should be the scope of the book (tell'em'all or just show them the way and leave them to research further).

2.Should the book be based purely on assembly language only or there should be some HLL(c/c++) code in it.Again I prefer the assembly language paradigm since it is almost impossible to do many things in HLL.

3.Should I write such book at all ?

Any other suggestions are welcome.

Again if google was your friend, there is this amazing book or Malware (worms, virus, etc).

Malware: Fighting Malicious Code - ed Skoudis and Lenny Zestler

Maybe that book will give you some tips

I've read this book but it touches only the surface of the field.
It do not cover any technical details and is on the defensive side of Malware Research.

Anyways, Thanks for the suggestion.

This one's a little older but good:

The Art of Computer Virus Research and Defense (http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FComputer-Virus-Research-Defense-Symantec%2Fdp%2F0321304543%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1211556085%26sr%3D1-1&tag=thedigitalcon-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325)

Don

Thanks for replying don, but I've gone through all the material related to viruses and worms and I don't need any pointers to this info (books or underground liks etc.)

What I need is your opinion to the questions I have posted in the first post.

Thanks.

OK... my initial reaction is probably very similar to what others said about that book back in the day. What good will this book do other than increase illegal activity? If you could somehow focus it in the direction of the white hat crowd, I think it would serve the community better. How would you do that? I'm not exactly sure. Maybe the title of the book could be something like:

"What Virus Code Can Teach Us about Efficient Programming" or
"Creative Coding the Viral Way"

or instead of Ethical Hacking, you could play on that theme:

"Ethical Virus Programming" or
"What White Hats Can Learn from Virus Code"

Just brainstorming out loud.

As for your specific questions:

1. Both. I would give specific examples but then also encourage them to continue their own research.

2. Again, I would say both. Keep in mind, that if you only do assembly, then you are limiting your audience. That may not be a concern of yours if you are in it more for the sharing of knowledge and not the money that comes with additional sales.

3. Only you can answer this one. One piece of advice. Other people don't define, but those that associate closely with define your image and how others see you. Again, this may not be a concern, but if you write a book solely on how to write a virus, then you may be inadvertantly be linking yourself with that community. If you come up with some kind of angle to move it towards the white hat side, you may find that in the end, this is how you want people to know you.

Hope that helps,
Don

Thanks don.