Malware Analysis & Development Course Options

Taking a look at the Sector7, Maldev Academy, and TCM Security Academy courses.

I’ve been doing a ton of research lately trying to get up-to-speed on malware analysis and development. Since I had some open time I decided to hit both sides of the coin; analysis and development. Taking a look at some of the most popular paid options for analysis there are:

• TCM Security’s Practical Malware Analysis & Triage course ($30 per month)

• PluralSight’s Malware Analysis offerings ($45 per month)

• Paul Chin’s courses on Udemy (between $45 → $80 per course)

• Zero2Automated Advanced Malware Analysis course ($180)

Lots of options there, but if you had to pick two I’d say go for the PMAT from TCM Security combined with PluralSight’s offerings. I say this because the PMAT is fantastic and will take you from 0 → 100 in terms of being ready to take a look at a vast majority of malware. The PluralSight courses span a wide breadth though and give the user time to reinforce things learned in the PMAT, and see examples of more incident response-related things along the way. The PMAT is also only 9 hours, so most people should be able to get it done in a month, so the overall cost of the course could just be $30.

Once you’ve completed two or three of those offerings and spent some time in your home lab, it might be time to start diving into the malware development side of things. The paid courses that most people point at immediately are:

• Maldev Academy ($250 for 90 days of access)

• Sector7’s RTO series (around $200 per course, 3 courses recommended minimum)

There isn’t a ton of easily accessible options for malware development in terms of paid courses. Lucky for us though, both malware analysis & malware development have some extremely generous individuals out there making free content! Here are just a few of the ones on my list:

Malware Analysis:

• Josh Stroschein

• DFIR Diva has a huge list of free and paid options

Malware Development:

• Crow’s Malware Development

• Red Team Notes

• Cosmodium CyberSecurity

When it comes to reinforcement I always support it, but make sure you aren’t wasting your own time by doing courses back to back if they cover topics you’re comfortable with. The next step is to get your hands dirty with either analysis or development! Let me know if I missed any great resources and I’ll be sure to add them to this list.