Book Image

Binary Analysis Cookbook

By : Michael Born
Book Image

Binary Analysis Cookbook

By: Michael Born

Overview of this book

Binary analysis is the process of examining a binary program to determine information security actions. It is a complex, constantly evolving, and challenging topic that crosses over into several domains of information technology and security. This binary analysis book is designed to help you get started with the basics, before gradually advancing to challenging topics. Using a recipe-based approach, this book guides you through building a lab of virtual machines and installing tools to analyze binaries effectively. You'll begin by learning about the IA32 and ELF32 as well as IA64 and ELF64 specifications. The book will then guide you in developing a methodology and exploring a variety of tools for Linux binary analysis. As you advance, you'll learn how to analyze malicious 32-bit and 64-bit binaries and identify vulnerabilities. You'll even examine obfuscation and anti-analysis techniques, analyze polymorphed malicious binaries, and get a high-level overview of dynamic taint analysis and binary instrumentation concepts. By the end of the book, you'll have gained comprehensive insights into binary analysis concepts and have developed the foundational skills to confidently delve into the realm of binary analysis.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Making IA64 system calls on Linux

If you've been working through the recipes so far, you're off to a great start toward working through the remaining recipes. Like IA32, we can make system calls on IA64 so that we can interact with the operating system and perform other tasks. I wish I could say that if you are a pro at making IA32 system calls, IA64 system calls would be a breeze.

So much has changed between the two that we'll have to carry over only a small part of our IA32 knowledge. We'll still have to set up registers and use system call numbers to perform these operations, but that's about it. The registers that we will use are different for IA64; we have more available to us, so we can have more arguments to our system calls if need be, and even the method for invoking the system call has changed. Fear not, though, because we will walk through these...