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)

Iterating each step

At some point in our methodology, we may need to loop back to the beginning and start the methodology over. For example, if we're working through analyzing a binary that incorporates another binary, say, as a library, we may need to use our methodology on that library as well. So, we need to identify throughout our analysis endeavors when and where to apply iteration if our goal is to truly figure out the purpose of any binary we analyze.

Throughout this recipe, we'll repeat some of the commands and tool usage from previous recipes but in a way that is specifically designed to show us how to identify areas of our analysis where iteration applies. You'll see familiar uses of readelf, objdump, and others.

Getting ready

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