YARA

Overview

YARA is a tool that identify and classify malware by the pattern. And by pattern, it means identifying specific textual or binary sequences (Strings) and structural characteristics within a file or memory to create a unique signature for a malware family.

Description

• Strings: These are unique, observable artifacts of the malware, such as:
  • Text strings (e.g., file names, registry keys, error messages).
  • Hexadecimal byte patterns (e.g., specific code fragments or function calls).
  • Regular expressions (to catch common, structured patterns).
• Conditions: The rule uses Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) to specify how many and which of these patterns must be present for a match to occur, allowing it to catch variants of the same malware family.

Thoughts

It seems to me Yara can be used as a powerful searching engine of the local file. (Of course it can be used for detecting malwar too). I might dive deeper into this tool later on! More to come!

Hash-based indicators look for exact matches; however, with one simple change of the malware, the indicator no longer works.

YARA is a very popular open-source and multi-platform tool (it works with most hosts running Windows, Linux, or Mac operating systems) that provides a mechanism to exploit code similarities between malware samples within a family.

Sources

• Yara Rule On Github