Go malware reversing & assembly reference

Recognize Go binaries during defensive triage. Inspect build information, distinguish runtime scaffolding from application code, and validate strings, network behavior, and filesystem activity before calling them malicious. A Go binary is not inherently malware; library names and embedded domains alone are not evidence of an attack.

Read x86-64 Intel-syntax instructions with context: MOV reads or transfers values, while LEA computes an address without dereferencing it. Trace the flags used by conditional branches, distinguish signed from unsigned comparisons, and identify the calling convention before recovering arguments. Windows x64, System V AMD64, and Go's compiler-specific internal ABI are not interchangeable. Validate possible Go string and slice layouts at their use sites rather than trusting a decompiler's inferred types.

Original ThreatOps guidance informed by Mandiant FLARE's Go reverse engineering and assembly learning resources. The upstream Go reference focuses on Windows AMD64 executables compiled with Go 1.24.0. Use an isolated, authorized analysis environment. This reference includes a copyable analyst handoff and links to upstream training; ThreatOps does not host sample binaries or reproduce FLARE documents.