Deepen Security With Malware Memory Analysis for Fileless Malware Detection
By Dean Lombardo
What is malware memory analysis? This article explores the important role of malware memory analysis in fileless malware detection.
Hackers and malware programs don’t need files to infect your computer systems. They can inject malicious code directly into system memory, often after tricking a user into clicking on an attachment or link. Once in memory, this fileless malware, from which there is no telltale trace of a download, can evade AV detection and then use your own programs to spread to other devices, steal processing resources and data, and worse.
But fileless malware isn’t impossible to detect and remove.
Atomicorp’s Atomic OSSEC is an extended detection and response (XDR) solution that enables organizations and federal agencies to monitor memory for fileless malware through a capability called malware memory analysis. Coupled with Atomic OSSEC’s advanced file integrity monitoring (FIM) and other defense-in-depth security capabilities, our malware memory analysis provides a crucial role in detecting virtual foreign objects that aren’t files and sometimes are just a strip of code found only in memory.
Malware Memory Analysis and Load Optimization
Virus scanning of file systems only detects changes to files and file directories. Adversaries will try to modify a program in memory so it’s not in disk. Sometimes, they’ll inject fileless malware.
Be able to detect, isolate, and remove malware from memory, while optimizing load processing. (Learn more about Atomicorp antivirus and antimalware capabilities.)
Unlike a file system level scanner, a memory scanner will watch everything that utilizes the operating system. The advantage of scanning memory is better, deeper, real-time AV and antimalware coverage, and with the Atomic OSSEC detection engine it’s not a big drain on memory or processing power. Atomic OSSEC v.6.0.61 optimizes ClamAV and overall AV deployment to be more efficient (92 percent reduction in memory usage on Linux and AIX).
Atomic OSSEC provides two primary malware memory analysis capabilities. It:
- Detects fileless malware and any malicious activity happening in memory. In addition to the real-time security benefits, this also enables organizations to detect data exfiltration and cryptojacking processing theft.
- Performs process integrity checks. Scan what a system is doing and make sure it’s doing what it’s supposed to. Be able to detect what changed in memory on the CPU and if it is malicious or in error. A memory bit can also get flipped accidentally, and you’ll want your IDS and XDR to be able to restore a system to a previous uncorrupted version.
Schedule a demo to see what Atomic OSSEC can do for you.
About Atomic OSSEC XDR
Atomic OSSEC is an extended detection and response (XDR) and compliance solution powered by log-based IDS, real-time FIM, AV and antimalware, vulnerability detection, cloud workload protection, source and file blocking, malware removal, and much more.
These deep monitoring capabilities enable organizations and federal agencies to protect their computing endpoints, cloud APIs, cloud workloads, and supply chain software components, the latter which should be scanned for integrity before being compiled or consumed.
Do you have defense-in-depth measures in place in the event an initial scan misses something? Atomic OSSEC empowers you to orchestrate and automate security, respond across the security stack, and analyze with rich SIEM capabilities and a graphical user interface (GUI).
Learn more about Atomicorp malware memory analysis and XDR capabilities.
Visit the Atomic OSSEC page.
See how you can orchestrate advanced FIM, malware memory analysis and fileless malware detection to rapidly detect anomalous system changes and thwart malicious code.