The Impact of Modern Languages on Malware Development and Defense

This week, we are joined by Nick Cerne, Security Consultant from Bishop Fox, to discuss "Rust for Malware Development." In pursuit of simulating real adversarial tactics, this blog explores the use of Rust for malware development, contrasting it with C in terms of binary complexity, detection evasion, and reverse engineering challenges.

The author demonstrates how Rust's inherent anti-analysis traits and memory safety features can create more evasive malware tooling, including a simple dropper that injects shellcode using lesser-known Windows APIs. Through hands-on comparisons and decompiled output analysis, the post highlights Rust’s growing appeal in offensive security while noting key OPSEC considerations and tooling limitations.

The research can be found here:

• Rust for Malware Development

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