Cyber-Espionage Malware Attacks Detection and Analysis: A Case Study

ABSTRACT

Malware attacks for electronic espionage and intelligence focus on gathering or destroying the information, documents, system infrastructure, and applications without the consent of the victim. Recent studies in this field concentrate on theoretical assessments, and a limited number of studies have been carried out about its application dimension. Therefore, in this study, the detection and analysis of a real malware attack against a public institution for cyber-espionage and intelligence purposes are investigated in detail. The selected samples were analyzed by the malware named “Injector.exe” which is recently popular in attacking. We also introduce an analysis method based on the attack techniques and characteristics of the selected sample. Finally, we explain that the traces of the attacker can be monitored through the analysis method of the “Injector.exe” which is examined by using the fast and effective technique.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyber-attacks
• computer security
• cyber espionage
• malware

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).