Windows Internals for Malware Developers & Malware Analysts

Name: Windows Internals for Malware Developers & Malware Analysts
Rating: 4.7 (23 reviews)

Master Windows Internals to build advanced malware, analyze threats, and understand how malware works inside Windows OS

Created bySwapnil Singh

Last updated 10/2026

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What you'll learn

Understand core Windows Internals including processes, threads, memory management, PE loading, handles, objects, and system calls.
Analyze, debug, and reverse-engineer malware by understanding how malware interacts with internal Windows components.
Develop Windows-based malware ethically using real API calls, process manipulation, token abuse, and stealth techniques.
Investigate security boundaries and integrity levels to understand privilege escalation, access control, and OS protection mechanisms.
Use Windows Internals knowledge to detect malicious behavior, identify anomalies, and understand attacker techniques.
Apply internal OS concepts in malware analysis labs using debuggers, tools like x64dbg, Process Hacker, and WinDbg.
Understand how system components communicate—from user mode to kernel mode—and how malware exploits these flows.
Build a strong foundation for reverse engineering, malware analysis, exploit development, and blue-team defense.

Course content

10 sections • 51 lectures • 12h 35m total length

Introduction3:35
Why Windows internal is important for Malware Developers and Malware Analysts ?3:06

Understanding WinAPI concept in windows OS8:01
Understanding a process in Windows OS ?4:38
Understanding Processes in Windows
A process is a running instance of a program in Windows. When you launch an application, Windows creates a process and provides it with the resources needed to execute.
Each process has its own virtual memory space and can contain one or more threads that perform the actual execution. Windows manages processes throughout their lifecycle, including creation, execution, and termination.
Understanding processes is an important foundation for learning Windows Internals, malware analysis, reverse engineering, debugging, and cybersecurity, because many Windows security concepts depend on how processes operate and interact with the operating system.
Understanding Handle concept in Windows OS7:27
Understanding thread concept in Windows OS12:34
Practical demonstration of threads in Windows OS25:10
Learn to view and analyze Windows threads, identify thread IDs and start addresses, inspect instruction pointers, and compare kernel and user stacks using Process Hacker and Brockman.
Understanding the concept of ANSI and UNICODE encoding in Windows OS24:42
Understanding the concept of User mode and Kernel mode in Windows OS15:42
Practical demo of user mode and kernel mode in Windows OS26:21
Understanding the concept of hypervisor in Windows OS17:30

How Windows OS boots up ( Windows startup process )8:57
Understanding Windows OS architecture6:20
How a program is executed in Windows OS ( concept of syscall in Windows OS)29:49
Windows Kernel Debugging lab setup ( Setting up kernel debugging in Windows OS)6:22
Set up a two-machine Windows kernel debugging lab in VirtualBox with bridged networking, enable kernel debugging, configure wind debug, and load symbols from the Microsoft Public Symbol server.
Tracing and debugging Windows OS kernel functions in Windows using WinDbg9:28
Trace how a notepad file open moves from user mode to kernel mode, via kernel32.dll and ntdll, through the IO manager to the NTFS driver, then back, using WinDbg.

Process and Thread internal structures through the kernel in Windows OS32:36
In this lecture we will peek into EPROCESS and ETHREAD structures in Windows kernel OS. We will understand PEB,TEB structures in user mode in Windows OS. We will see how PEB and TEB is related to each other in Windows OS.
Windows Kernel Internals: Practical Demo of EPROCESS and ETHREAD Using WinDbg28:23
Explore Windows kernel internals by viewing eprocess and ethread structures with WinDbg, and inspect kernel and user mode blocks such as the process involvement block and process environment block.

Relationship Between TEB and PEB in Windows Internals13:41
This module explains the architectural linkage between the TEB and PEB structures in Windows.
You will examine how each thread maintains its own TEB, which includes a direct pointer to the process-wide PEB. This design enables efficient access to shared process metadata such as the loader data, module lists, and runtime parameters.
We will also discuss how this relationship is leveraged in advanced techniques like manual API resolution, PEB traversal, and evasion strategies in malware.
How to use PEB ( Process Environment Block) structure to detect a debugger in OS17:09
Practical Demo: Detecting a Debugger Using PEB structure in Windows OS22:45
Windows Anti-Anti-Debugging: Bypassing PEB Debugger Checks (Practical Demo)11:22
Concept of Import Address Table (IAT) in Windows Internals for Malware Developer21:16
Enumerating Loaded DLLs Using PEB in Windows (Practical for Malware Developers)6:16

How a process is created in Windows OS from user mode to Windows kernel4:39
Understanding CreateProcess Windows API function working18:42
Hands-On Practical: CreateProcess Windows API in Windows Internals20:20
Debugging CreateProcess Windows API Using WinDbg (Step-by-Step Analysis)22:56
Process Hiding and Suspension in Windows (Internals & Practical Demo)22:33
Opening a Process in Windows Using OpenProcess API (Malware Development Guide)9:27
Practical Demo: Opening a Process Using Windows API (OpenProcess)10:00

What Is a Thread in Windows and How Threads Are Created (Internals Guide)13:16
Practical Demo: Creating Threads in Windows OS10:13
What Is Thread Context in Windows (Internals Explained)11:16
Getting and Setting Thread Context in Windows (Internals Guide Step-by-Step)12:26
Practical Demo: Getting and Setting Thread Context in Windows OS30:04
RIP Hijacking in Windows: How Instruction Pointer Manipulation Works in Malware8:40
RIP Hijacking in Windows for Malware Development: Practical Demo of RIP exploit17:20

How Memory Is Allocated in Windows (Malware Development Perspective)9:55
Explore how Windows memory is allocated with the VirtualAlloc API in C++, including reserve versus commit and protection flags for read, write, and execute in malware development.
Practical Demo: Allocating Memory in the Current Process (Windows API)25:13
Experience a practical demo of allocating memory in the current process with virtual alloc, writing and printing data, then freeing memory using virtual free and memcpy.
Executing shellcode in Allocated Memory (Windows API – Current Process)3:19
Practical Demo: Executing Shellcode in Allocated Memory (Windows API )26:14
Allocating Memory in a Remote Process (Windows API Guide)8:34
Writing Data to a Remote Process (Windows API Guide for malware development)7:18
Practical Demo: Allocating and Writing Memory in a Remote Process (Windows API)24:43
demonstrates allocating memory in a remote Windows process, writing data to that memory, and using breakpoints to inspect execution, via a practical notepad example.
Allocating Memory & Executing Shellcode in a Remote Process (Windows API Guide)27:21

Requirements

Basic understanding of Windows usage (no prior knowledge of Windows Internals required).
Some programming experience in C,C++.
Interest in malware development, malware analysis, cybersecurity, or ethical hacking.
A Windows 10 or Windows 11 system (physical or virtual machine) to follow along with practical demonstrations.
Optional but recommended: Familiarity with simple command-line usage and basic debugging concepts.
This course is designed to be beginner-friendly. Even if you are new to security, you will learn everything from the ground up and build strong confidence in understanding how Windows Internals relate to malware development and malware analysis.

Description

Understanding Windows Internals is one of the most important skills for anyone entering malware development, malware analysis, reverse engineering, or ethical hacking. This course is designed to give you a deep, practical understanding of how Windows really works behind the scenes, so you can build, analyze, and detect modern malware with confidence.

You will learn core Windows components such as processes, threads, memory management, system calls, handles, kernel objects, tokens, integrity levels, PE file loading, and the Windows security model. Each topic is explained in a simple, beginner-friendly manner with practical demonstrations, code examples, and real-world scenarios relevant to malware development and analysis.

Whether you want to write advanced malware, analyze malicious executables, bypass security controls, detect malicious behavior, or understand how red-team and threat actors operate, this course gives you the strong internal foundations required.

By the end, you will understand how malware interacts with Windows, how the OS reacts internally, and how to use this knowledge to develop more effective malware or to analyze and defend against sophisticated threats. This course prepares you for real-world malware development, BLUE team analysis, incident response, reverse engineering, and ethical hacking. It also strengthens your overall security mindset through deeper operating system awareness and practical understanding.

Who this course is for:

Ethical Hackers
Malware Developers
Malware Analysts
Red Teams
Penetration tester
Blue Teams
SOC Analysts
Computer Science Students
Windows System Admins
Computer Programmer

Windows Internals for Malware Developers & Malware Analysts

What you'll learn

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Course content

Introduction2 lectures • 7min

Lab setup for windows internal course2 lectures • 28min

Understanding Essential Windows Operating System concepts9 lectures • 2hr 22min

Understanding Windows Operating System Architecture5 lectures • 1hr 1min

Process and Thread Internals basics in Windows OS2 lectures • 1hr 1min

Windows Internals: Understanding PEB and TEB Structures6 lectures • 1hr 32min

How Windows Creates Processes: Internals for Malware Developers7 lectures • 1hr 49min

Thread Creation in Windows (Essential for Malware Development & Analysis)7 lectures • 1hr 43min

Windows Memory Internals for Malware Development & Analysis8 lectures • 2hr 13min

Windows TLS Internals & Shellcode Execution for Malware Development3 lectures • 20min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: