[solalto]

I'm just starting to get into malware development and would appreciate any tips/things to avoid

I know some C and have a decent amount of experience with how linux/mac work but little to none with windows unfortunately - is mac malware viable or should i just stick to windows?

From my experience knowledge is pretty closely guarded but if anyone is keen to teach/offer decently in depth advice hmu, I promise i'm not a fed (least obvious fed)

[Mandala]

Mac malware is niche.

XProtect + Gatekeeper make persistence a bit ughh, and most payloads need user interaction.

Windows is better for learning, start with API hooking, direct syscalls, and EDR evasion.

Ive posted the MD MZ book on the forum if you are interested in reading that.

[argue]

From my experience knowledge is pretty closely guarded but if anyone is keen to teach/offer decently in depth advice hmu, I promise i'm not a fed (least obvious fed)

It's not that its closely guarded, people just want to make money for their efforts. There is a lot of trial and error when it comes to developing code that some may call malware. There is plenty of resources out there to learn, I would recommend building off what you know now. You mentioned Linux, go with that and start researching. Practice known techniques and start tweaking them from there.

I would go against jumping into Windows dev right away unless you just want to spam the world with your own info stealer. A lot goes into Windows and you have to battle EDR (if thats your goal). Your technique might work at first but then find out an hour later your software is getting slammed by EDR.

[Chapo]

Well first off, with your proclaimed background you could definitely mess around with Mac malware if you wanted to. It’s viable, it's just less common tbh since the market share is smaller and macOS has some tight security hoops (like Gatekeeper and sandboxing) to jump through. But if you want me to be honest with you, Windows is where the action is at. Bigger target, more vulns, and soooooooooooo many fucking resources to learn from. If you’re new to it, I would say just start there and get familiar with all the concepts, then in the future you could circle back to Mac if you’re still feeling that instead.

You also don’t really need to be a "pro" right away for Windows, just start small. Get familiar with how Windows internals work (PE file format, registry, processes/threads, etc.). And since you said you have some experience with C, that should give you a pretty decent head start and carry you pretty far tbh. Lots of malware is still written in C even today cuz it’s a low level language and fast.

Anyways if you have any more questions feel free to shoot me a PM on here, I'd be glad to help you get started and share some good beginner resources with you.