// Prerequisites
What to read before The Art of Mac Malware, Volume 1
If The Art of Mac Malware, Volume 1 feels too steep at advanced level, here is what to read first. Lighter books in the same topics that build the prerequisites this one assumes.
01 · 2012
Practical Malware Analysis
Still the gold standard textbook for static and dynamic malware analysis on Windows.
Intermediate5/5Michael Sikorski, Andrew Honig02 · 2005
Reversing
The book that taught a generation how software actually looks once you strip away the source. Still the clearest on-ramp to thinking in assembly, even with dated tools.
Intermediate4/5Eldad Eilam03 · 2011
The IDA Pro Book
Chris Eagle's deep manual on IDA Pro, the disassembler that defined a generation of reverse engineering. Useful even with Ghidra in the picture, since most malware-analysis literature still assumes IDA.
Intermediate4/5Chris Eagle04 · 2024
Evasive Malware
Kyle Cucci on the anti-analysis arms race: sandbox detection, anti-debug, anti-VM, packing, and the analyst-side tooling and tradecraft that get past those layers.
Advanced4/5Kyle Cucci05 · 2009
Les virus informatiques
The reference French academic treatment of computer virology — the theory, algorithms and practice of viruses and malicious code — by Éric Filiol, a former military cryptanalyst and one of France's leading virologists.
Advanced4/5Éric Filiol06 · 2014
Practical Reverse Engineering
A working reverser's textbook from three Microsoft / Quarkslab veterans, covering the architectures and toolchain you'll actually meet on real targets, including the Windows kernel and modern obfuscation patterns.
Advanced4/5Bruce Dang, Alexandre Gazet, Elias Bachaalany07 · 2019
Rootkits and Bootkits
Matrosov, Rodionov and Bratus on persistent, deeply-embedded malware: kernel rootkits, MBR/UEFI bootkits, and the forensic techniques that surface them. Strongly Windows-internals oriented.
Advanced4/5Alex Matrosov, Eugene Rodionov, Sergey Bratus08 · 2009
The Mac Hacker's Handbook
Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi's 2009 deep dive into the Mac OS X exploit landscape — Mach-O, IPC, sandboxing as it then existed, and the early-Intel-Mac exploitation chains.
Advanced3/5Charlie Miller, Dino Dai Zovi