Interactive application security testing (IAST) can help with malware analysis in several ways:
IAST tools monitor applications in runtime to detect potential threats and malicious behaviors:
Exfiltrating sensitive data
Injecting code
Making insecure network requests
Abusing privileges
Any of these behaviors could indicate the presence of malware, alerting malware analysts.
IAST tools pinpoint vulnerabilities and threats more precisely than static or dynamic testing alone since they have visibility into the actual execution flow of the application.
This allows malware analysts to:
Understand how the malware works
Identify potential weaknesses to exploit
The precise locationing of issues provided by IAST gives malware analysts more context into how threats work within the application.
IAST tools also provide remediation guidance when vulnerabilities or threats are identified, such as:
Removing hard-coded credentials
Escaping user input
Limiting privileges
This remediation guidance can be useful for malware analysts looking to disable or remove malware from an infected application.
In summary, while IAST tools are not designed specifically for malware analysis, they can still offer benefits:
Early detection of threats
More context into how threats work
Outlining potential fixes or workarounds
The runtime monitoring capabilities of IAST are well suited to assisting with malware analysis by helping analysts identify suspicious behaviors, pinpoint vulnerable code, and determine potential remediation steps.
Using IAST tools in conjunction with other malware analysis techniques has the potential to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of a malware analyst's work.
Top comments (0)