Sorry to go off topic, but I have to ask. How did you get involved in that industry? Malware analysis seems like something I'd love to do. If you don't mind, could you share any tips or career advice you would give to someone who might want to pursue a career in malware analysis/antivirus industry?
Well, in my case I was enjoying unpacking protected software (just for fun, I wasn't distributing cracked software, just writing tutorials on how to bypass protections and releasing tools/unpackers/unprotectors for common types of protectors). Then somebody contacted me and offered the job.
What you can do? I would start from tuts4you.com, teach x86 assembly language, download a degugger and/or disassembler and dig something or follow tutorials.
Thanks for your reply. I guess I tend to shy away from things like tuts4u and crackmes.de because it seems questionable legally, although I haven't looked into it much. I mostly "reverse" my own code in gdb just to understand whats going on in the assembly. These types of things are hard to show in a resume, so I'm not really sure how to make myself an attractive job candidate to some of these antivirus companies.
I don't see anything illegal in disassembling shareware or any other type of software. Compare it with disassembling your smartphone/alarm clock/hand watch/.. to find out how it works. Why should it be illegal?
