Anthropic-Cybersecurity-Skills/skills/performing-static-malware-analysis-with-pe-studio/references/api-reference.md

API Reference: Static Malware Analysis with PE Studio Agent

Overview

Performs automated static analysis of Windows PE binaries using pefile to inspect headers, sections, imports, strings, and resources for malware indicators.

Dependencies

Package	Version	Purpose
pefile	>= 2023.2.7	PE file parsing and section analysis
hashlib	stdlib	MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 hash computation

Core Functions

compute_hashes(filepath)

Generates MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 hashes and file size.

• Returns: dict with md5, sha1, sha256, size

analyze_sections(pe)

Inspects PE sections for entropy, virtual/raw size ratios, and packing indicators.

• Flags: HIGH_ENTROPY (>7.0), HIGH_VR_RATIO (>10x)
• Returns: list[dict] - section analysis entries

detect_packer(pe)

Identifies known packer section names (UPX, ASPack, VMProtect, Themida) and low import counts.

• Returns: list[str] - detected packer names

analyze_imports(pe)

Categorizes imports into Process Injection, Keylogging, Persistence, Evasion, Network, Crypto.

• Returns: list[dict] with category, dll, function

extract_strings(filepath, min_length=6)

Extracts ASCII strings and classifies into URLs, IPs, emails, registry keys, file paths.

• Returns: dict[str, list[str]] - categorized string indicators

analyze_resources(pe)

Inspects PE resources for high-entropy data and embedded PE files.

• Returns: list[dict] with type_id, size, entropy, flags

analyze_pe(filepath)

Full analysis pipeline producing structured report.

• Returns: dict - complete analysis report

Suspicious Import Categories

Category	Example Functions
Process Injection	VirtualAllocEx, WriteProcessMemory, CreateRemoteThread
Keylogging	GetAsyncKeyState, SetWindowsHookExA
Persistence	RegSetValueExA, CreateServiceA
Evasion	IsDebuggerPresent, CheckRemoteDebuggerPresent
Network	InternetOpenA, URLDownloadToFileA, WSAStartup
Crypto	CryptEncrypt, CryptDecrypt

Usage

python agent.py suspect.exe