By Jamy Klein, MSIA, CISSP

According to Panda Labs over 25 million new pieces of malware were released into the wild in 2009. 2010 is expected to be even worse. In addition to sheer volume, malware is becoming more sophisticated and targeted as a result of the influx of organized crime and state sponsors into the realm of malware authoring. Due to this unsavory trend, the SANS Institute has developed a course, Reverse-Engineering Malware: Malware Analysis Tools and Techniques AKA FORENSICS 610, to help white hats that need essential malware analysis skills and also to prepare security professionals for the GIAC Reverse Engineering Malware (GREM) certification. SANS describes FOR610, as:

“Teaches a practical approach to examining malicious software that runs natively on Microsoft Windows, and covers web-based malware such as JavaScript and Flash files. You will learn how to reverse-engineer malicious programs using a variety of system and network monitoring utilities, a disassembler, a debugger, and other tools for turning malware inside-out.”

In my work as a Security Engineer, I am frequently asked to analyze web sites and file downloads for potential infection. This course filled both a professional need and personal interest need for me in malware analysis.  After attending the 4-day course (now officially a 5-day course) at SANS Security West 2010 in San Diego, I sat down with the course author and instructor, Lenny Zeltser, to discuss his background, the course and malware analysis in general.

Nice interview.. GREM is certainly something on my list I'd like to go for sooner or later. However, what I often wonder is why I so often read something like 'no programming knowledge required' or the other way round, that security professionals ask if programming skills are required for a certain course or exam. Of course there are areas in security where one have more or less to deal with programming, however, I think that a security professional should have some kind of programming knowledge, independently on the area one has focused to.