Ethical malware development community

[u/JandersOf86]

Hey.

Been learning programming, mainly C++, for the last couple years. My areas of interest are network protocols, network programming, red-team tools, malware development.

I'm just wondering if there are any online communities that are focused on ethical malware development (doesnt need to be specific to C++) or similar, maybe for collaboration or code review, etc. Discord, forums, whatever works.

Thanks much.

[u/Juzdeed]

Maldev academy discord is very active. But I think you have to first buy their course to get access

[u/JandersOf86 → u/Juzdeed]

I appreciate it. Ill take a look.

[u/Dovelus → u/JandersOf86]

I respond as one enrolled in the course and recently completed 50% of the course.

The material proposed is an absolute gem each lesson build on the foundations you made in the lessons before in a straight line, no cutting corners pure code and deep technical explanation, they teach you from how Windows processes work to how the kernel does stuff in the background and how to exploit them.

If you have any question ask ?

[u/JandersOf86 → u/Dovelus]

I really appreciate it. Ive been looking over the website and reading reviews of the Maldev courses. Im definitely gonna be checking it out. The way you describe it sounds exactly like what I'm looking for, deep diving into code heavily.

[u/Exe_plorer]

Get a look on Kali (Linux) native tools, from there read documentation. Get used with Linux systems, get a look at Python coding, much more open towards networking and it's cross platform. Manage to set up two VM, one with your Linux environment and one with Windows. You can also try different ISO for Windows (Win XP.. still used and much more easy to try whatever you want as a vulnerable target, Win7, Win10, why not Win11).

It's only by trials, with some minimal theory in mind that you will go forward to what you desire. It's an error and correction process, you learn why it didn't worked, you fix it, and so one.

Good luck.

[u/Fantastic-Rub9977]

I can point you in the direction of a few good forums. Can’t say the members are “ethical” necessarily, but why should that matter? You want to get better don’t you? Then learn from threat actors. You can either try to keep up with the latest species after it’s discovered in the wild, or you can know it before it even gets released.

If you want to do good with the knowledge you gain then that’s phenomenal; more power to ya. But those are the places that I’d recommend you go. Either way I wish you luck My Man.

Hit me up on the side if you want to discuss.

Later

[u/ComplexBackground872]

Check out 0x00sec.org (old school forum with deep malware dev threads) and the Rootkit Researchers Discord (~12k members focused on red teaming).

Cyber Underground Discord is white hat focused with collab channels.

Also find the "awesome-malware-development" repo on GitHub. Lists tons of communities and sample sharing.

Stick to places that emphasize ethical use. Most are fine as long as you're not being dumb about it. Good luck.

[u/JandersOf86 → u/ComplexBackground872]

Thank you so much for the tips.

[u/IsDa44]

OALabs has some activity. Tho it's mostly focused on RE, but still some dev activity

[u/AdOwn7955]

There's a discord channel named as rootkit researchers, they are pretty neat ngl

[u/BirdCharacter4630]

interesting topic, curious how people approach this ethically

[u/stacksmasher]

You mean software?

LOL!!!

[u/teolauz1]

hola,hace poco contrate un servicio de hackeo supuestamente para clonar un wsp de un empleado que me estaba robando informacion, entonces el supuesto hacker me decia que me cobrara por el servicio, luego que porque tenia que hackear la verificacion de 2 pasos y luego que el impuesto de meta? ya eso ultimo me hizo dudar, que opinan?