Malware Analysis Contest

Last night at the NE Ohio Information Security Forum and the Security Justice podcast, I made an announcement about a malware analysis contest that Greg and I are putting on.

Starting from October 1, 2008 and ending October 26, 2008 we will be running a malware analysis challenge at http://www.malwarechallenge.info. In the challenge participants will download a malware sample to analyze. The site will have a list of questions for participants to answer and send in. We will judge the answers and those scoring the highest will win prizes.

We have some great prizes donated by some very cool companies. To only name some, Hex-Rays is donating a copy of IDA Pro and No Starch Press is donating a copy of Chris Eagle's IDA Pro book. Addison-Wesley and KoreLogic Security are also donating prizes (yet to be announced).

I want to emphasize that you don't need to be a malware analysis expert in order to have a chance to win. The challenge is about learning. You don't need to get the answers 100% correct in order to win a prize. The goal is to learn malware analysis skills, try out new tools and have some fun in the process.

We're also looking for more companies to donate prizes. If you think your company would like to donate something for the contest, please contact me.

Please spread the word about the challenge. I'll be posting again once the challenge goes live to remind everyone!