C/C++ Based Malware

The next portion of my research revolved around trying my hand at creating some malware in an attempt to run it against antivirus systems to see if it would be detected or not. For my initial test I decided to make a c/c++ program that would download and run a file from an online repository or web server and then execute the file. My goal was to make an exe file through this method that could be run on Windows machines. Since I currently have a better understanding of the Linux operating systems compared to Windows, I decided I would originally create it for Linux and then port it over to Windows. I started my implementing the libcurl library which allows a c/c++ program to make http requests. I would then make a request to my git lab repository to download an executable file raw code. This code would then be written to a file on the local machine and that file would be updated to a runnable file. Finally, the program would run the downloaded code before deleting the downloaded file from the system. After the Linux version was error free, I moved onto the Windows port. I re-implemented it to download a file and then save it to a file on the Windows file system instead. However, I had a conversation with my adviser at this point, and we discussed distribution of the program. We had discussed at one point how we would like to setup my project from last semester, a framework that would simulate a phishing campaign, to be able to send files as well. This brings up a problem as many email clients do not let you, or at least provide multiple warnings about, downloading exe files from emails. Due to this problem, I decide to switch over to attempt to implement a Microsoft word macro based malware solution instead.