Windows Malware Development for Red Teamers

This course is a practical Windows malware development course focused on execution techniques and internal system behavior from a red team perspective. You will learn how malware controls execution flow inside the Windows operating system and how these techniques are implemented at a low level within real programs.

The course begins with Early Bird APC execution, where you will develop and implement code that executes during thread initialization using Asynchronous Procedure Calls. You will understand how early-stage execution works inside a process and build the technique step by step in a controlled lab environment.

Next, you will implement direct system calls using x64 assembly. You will learn how malware communicates directly with the Windows kernel and how to construct programs that invoke native system calls without relying on higher-level APIs.

The course then covers additional malware execution techniques, including TLS callback execution, timer queue callbacks, and code cave injection. You will not only learn the theory behind these mechanisms but also develop working implementations to understand how they affect process behavior and execution flow.

You will also develop and use exception-based execution techniques such as Vectored Exception Handling (VEH), Structured Exception Handling (SEH), and Unhandled Exception Filters (UEF). These mechanisms will be used to control execution flow inside a process and demonstrate how exception handling can be leveraged in malware development.

This course is intended for red teamers, security researchers, and learners who want hands-on experience building and understanding Windows malware execution techniques. All demonstrations are performed in an isolated lab environment for educational and research purposes only.

By the end of this course, you will understand how malware execution techniques are designed, implemented, and structured at a low level, and how Windows internals can be used to control and influence program execution.