REMnux: Linux distribution for reverse-engineering malware

REMnux is a lightweight Linux distribution for assisting malware analysts in reverse-engineering malicious software.

REMnux is designed for running services that are useful to emulate within an isolated laboratory environment when performing behavioral malware analysis.

As part of this process, the analyst typically infects another laboratory system with the malware sample and directs potentially-malicious connections to the REMnux system that’s listening on the appropriate ports.

REMnux is also useful for analyzing web-based malware, such as malicious JavaScript, Java programs, and Flash files.

It also has tools for analyzing malicious documents, such as Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF files, and utilities for reversing malware through memory forensics. In these cases, malware may be loaded onto REMnux and analyzed directly on the REMnux system without requiring other systems to be present in the lab.

REMnux isn’t a fancy distribution that was built from scratch. In simple terms, it’s trimmed-down version of Ubuntu and has various useful malware tools set up on it.

REMnux does not aim to include all malware analysis tools in existence. Many of these tools are designed to work on Windows, and investigators prefer to use Windows systems for running such tools.

You can download the REMnux distribution as a VMware virtual appliance archive and also as an ISO image of a Live CD.