Reversing the Dark Web

Dissecting the Tools of the Underground Economy

by Lindsay Kaye

Spring 2026, 264 pp.

ISBN-13:

9781718504608

Step into the world of malware-as-a-service (MaaS) in this exploration of the tools and techniques used by threat actors in what is called the “underground economy.”

Each chapter of Reversing the Dark Web covers a category of malicious tool regularly bought and sold on the dark web, surveys actual ads for these products to gain details about criminal operations, and walks through the reverse engineering of common malware samples to understand their inner workings.

Through real-world case studies and exercises, you’ll learn about malware types such as stealers, loaders, botnets, ransomware, and post-exploitation toolkits, as well as the many tools threat actors use to make their attacks successful, such as crypters, obfuscation, and living off the land.

Makes use of open-source reverse-engineering tools for Windows, such as Ghidra and x64dbg

Author Bio

Lindsay Kaye is an expert malware analyst and reverse engineer who loves taking on technical challenges of all kinds. She speaks regularly at international conferences such as REcon, Disobey, SEC-T, FIRST, and numerous BSides events. In addition to speaking, she leads training sessions and workshops that help others develop skills in the technical aspects of cybersecurity. Lindsay currently leads the Threat Intelligence team at a New York-based cybersecurity company, building on her career from software engineer to reverse engineer to technical team leadership. A New York City native, Lindsay obtained her BS in Engineering from Olin College of Engineering before receiving her MBA from Babson College.

Table of contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: A Visit to the Dark Web
Chapter 2. Initial Access Methods
Chapter 3: Loaders and Botnets
Chapter 4: Information Stealers
Chapter 5: Banking Trojans
Chapter 6: Packers and Crypters
Chapter 7: Command-and-Control Frameworks
Chapter 8: Post-Exploitation Toolkits
Chapter 9: Living off the Land
Chapter 10: Windows Ransomware
Chapter 11: Linux and ESXi Ransomware
Chapter 12: Lessons from the Underground Economy

Appendix: Exercise Solutions

The chapters in red are included in this Early Access PDF.