Technical Solutions for Cybersecurity Challenges -- 2

Project Title: Digital Forensics, Malware Analysis & Security Investigation – 3 Challenges
I need complete technical assistance for an internship assessment consisting of 3 cybersecurity/DFIR challenges. The final deliverable must be a professional, evidence-based report suitable for submission to an internship/technical evaluation.
Challenges
Challenge 1 – Malware Analysis
I will provide a password-protected .7z archive.
Archive password:
Sample_data@2026#
Requirements:
- Safely extract and preserve the original evidence.
- Calculate SHA-256/MD5 hashes.
- Identify file type and metadata.
- Perform static analysis.
- Analyze strings, imports, APIs and suspicious indicators.
- Use appropriate tools such as Detect It Easy, PEStudio, FLOSS/strings and Ghidra.
- Perform controlled dynamic analysis only inside an isolated VM/lab environment.
- Analyze process, filesystem, registry and network behavior where applicable.
- Use Procmon/Process Explorer/Wireshark where relevant.
- Identify IOCs such as hashes, domains, IP addresses, filenames, registry keys, mutexes, URLs, etc.
- Explain the apparent functionality/behavior of the sample based strictly on evidence.
Challenge 2 – Log Analysis
Objective:
Determine who is compromised and how the compromise occurred.
Requirements:
- Preserve the original log files.
- Calculate hashes.
- Identify log format and time range.
- Parse and normalize the logs.
- Identify users, hosts and IP addresses.
- Analyze authentication events.
- Identify failed and successful login attempts.
- Correlate source IPs, users, timestamps and suspicious activity.
- Investigate privilege escalation, command execution, persistence, lateral movement and other relevant activity if present.
- Build a chronological attack timeline.
- Clearly identify the potentially compromised account/system.
- Explain the likely attack sequence using the actual log evidence.
- Extract relevant IOCs.
- Do not make unsupported assumptions; every important finding must have supporting log evidence.
Suggested environment/tools:
- Kali Linux
- Python
- pandas
- grep
- awk
- jq
- CyberChef
- Wireshark/tshark
- Other appropriate DFIR tools if required.
Challenge 3 – Audio Denoising and Transcription
I will provide the intercepted audio.
Requirements:
- Preserve the original audio.
- Calculate SHA-256 hash.
- Extract metadata using FFmpeg/FFprobe.
- Analyze waveform.
- Analyze spectrogram.
- Identify background noise/interference.
- Perform controlled noise reduction using Audacity/FFmpeg or another appropriate tool.
- Preserve speech information and avoid excessive processing.
- Generate a cleaned audio file.
- Transcribe the cleaned audio using Whisper or another suitable speech-to-text system.
- Manually verify the transcription against the recording.
- Clearly mark unclear/inaudible words instead of guessing.
- Provide timestamps where possible.
Required Report Format
Create ONE consolidated professional report containing all three challenges.
1. Personal Details
- Name
- Email
- Phone
- College
- University
- Course/Branch
- Internship/assessment details
- Submission date
2. Executive Summary
Provide a concise overview of:
- Investigation objectives
- Challenges performed
- Tools used
- Major findings
- Overall outcome
3. Tools Used
Provide a table:
Challenge Tool Purpose
Malware FLARE-VM Malware analysis
Malware Detect It Easy PE/file identification
Malware PEStudio Static analysis
Malware Ghidra Reverse engineering
Malware Procmon Runtime monitoring
Malware Wireshark Network analysis
Logs Kali Linux DFIR environment
Logs Python/pandas Log processing
Logs CyberChef Data decoding
Audio FFmpeg Metadata/audio processing
Audio Audacity Denoising/spectral analysis
Audio Whisper Transcription

Only list tools that were actually used.
4. Methodology
Divide into:
Challenge 1 – Malware Analysis
Analysis
Findings
Outcome
Challenge 2 – Log Analysis
Analysis
Findings
Outcome
Challenge 3 – Audio Analysis
Analysis
Findings
Outcome
5. Step-by-Step Investigation
For every major step provide:
Step number
Objective
Command/tool used
Observation
Interpretation
Screenshot
Screenshots must be clear and readable.
Screenshot requirements
Capture evidence for:
Challenge 1
- Archive/evidence acquisition
- Hash calculation
- File identification
- Static analysis
- Strings/imports
- Ghidra analysis
- Dynamic behavior
- Network analysis
- IOC extraction
Challenge 2
- Original log
- Hash
- Log structure
- Authentication events
- Suspicious events
- Relevant IP/user evidence
- Correlation
- Attack timeline
- Final compromise evidence
Challenge 3
- Original audio/hash
- FFprobe metadata
- Original waveform
- Spectrogram
- Noise profile
- Noise reduction settings
- Denoised waveform/audio
- Transcription
- Manual verification
Evidence standards
- Do not modify original evidence.
- Maintain hashes.
- Keep original and processed files separately.
- Don't fabricate findings.
- Don't fabricate screenshots.
- Don't fabricate commands/output.
- Every major conclusion must be supported by evidence.
- Clearly distinguish observed facts from interpretation.
- Mark uncertain findings as uncertain.
Final Deliverables
Please provide:
1. Final consolidated PDF report
2. Editable DOCX report
3. All screenshots in a separate folder
4. Challenge 1 analysis artifacts
5. Challenge 2 analysis/output files
6. Challenge 3 cleaned audio
7. Final transcription TXT
8. Timestamped SRT/VTT transcription if possible
9. Hash/evidence file
10. IOC table
11. Attack timeline
Quality requirement
The report should look like a professional Digital Forensics / DFIR / Malware Analysis internship investigation report, not a generic academic assignment.
The report should be technically accurate, reproducible, evidence-based and clearly explain what was done, why it was done, what was observed, and what conclusion can be supported by the evidence.
Please do not invent any findings. If the supplied evidence does not support a conclusion, explicitly state that limitation.