Anti reverse engineering. Malware vs Antivirus Software

[PELock]

Anti-reverse engineering – techniques that make it difficult to reverse-engineer malware (malicious software).

Reverse engineering refers to methods of analysing a compiled program without access to its source code. In this article I would like to describe methods which are used by creators of malicious software to hinder the analysis of viruses and other malicious software (known as malware), and I will explain how antivirus companies and antivirus software deal with this.

In order to make analysis difficult for antivirus companies, first you need to know how antivirus companies analyse malware “in the lab”. So, what are the most common approaches that antivirus companies use?