Portable Executable (PE) files are file formats for executables, DDLs, and object codes used in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows. They contain many useful pieces of information for malware analysts, including imports, exports, time-date stamps, subsystems, sections, and resources. The following is the basic structure of a PE file:
Some of the components of a PE file are as follows:
- DOS Header: This starts with the first 64 bytes of every PE file, so DOS can validate the executable and can run it in the DOS stub mode.
- PE Header: This contains information, including the location and size of the code. ...