The Role of Cryptography in Malware

Over the past decade, the cybersecurity industry has seen a significant increase in the use of advanced cryptographic techniques in malware. Cybercriminals have gone from simple password-stealing Trojans to complex multi-stage attacks using encryption, steganography, and other cryptographic techniques.

This article explores the role of cryptography in modern malware, highlighting one of the ways attackers use to obfuscate their actions and bypass security measures (AV engines).    

Encryption to protect connections with C2

One of the most common uses of cryptography in malware is to secure communications between an infected system and an attacker's C2 servers. Using strong encryption algorithms such as AES, RSA and ChaCha20 for example, attackers can ensure the confidentiality and immutability of transmitted data, preventing security researchers and network administrators from analyzing traffic and detecting malicious activity.

Code obfuscation and anti-analysis

Cryptography can also be used to hide malicious code, making it difficult for security researchers and antivirus programs to detect and analyze threats. Encryption can be used to hide malicious code in seemingly innocuous files, allowing malware to bypass traditional security measures.

Ransomware

Cryptography plays a critical role in ransomware attacks because strong encryption algorithms are used to ensure that the victim cannot recover their data without paying a ransom.

Many modern strains of ransomware use a combination of symmetric and asymmetric encryption algorithms such as AES and RSA to ensure secure and efficient encryption. The widespread use of strong encryption in ransomware attacks makes it difficult....

Author

Zhassulan Zhussupov