Book Image

Ghidra Software Reverse Engineering for Beginners

By : A. P. David
Book Image

Ghidra Software Reverse Engineering for Beginners

By: A. P. David

Overview of this book

Ghidra, an open source software reverse engineering (SRE) framework created by the NSA research directorate, enables users to analyze compiled code on any platform, whether Linux, Windows, or macOS. This book is a starting point for developers interested in leveraging Ghidra to create patches and extend tool capabilities to meet their cybersecurity needs. You'll begin by installing Ghidra and exploring its features, and gradually learn how to automate reverse engineering tasks using Ghidra plug-ins. You’ll then see how to set up an environment to perform malware analysis using Ghidra and how to use it in the headless mode. As you progress, you’ll use Ghidra scripting to automate the task of identifying vulnerabilities in executable binaries. The book also covers advanced topics such as developing Ghidra plug-ins, developing your own GUI, incorporating new process architectures if needed, and contributing to the Ghidra project. By the end of this Ghidra book, you’ll have developed the skills you need to harness the power of Ghidra for analyzing and avoiding potential vulnerabilities in code and networks.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction to Ghidra
6
Section 2: Reverse Engineering
12
Section 3: Extending Ghidra

Understanding the difference between raw binaries and formatted binaries

In this section, you will learn the difference between raw and formatted binaries.The concept of a binary file can be easily defined by negation; that is, a binary file is a file that is not a text file.

We can classify binary files into two categories: raw binary files and formatted binary files.

Raw binaries are those binary files that contain unprocessed data, so these binary files have no format in any way. An example of a raw binary could be a memory dump taken from some buffer containing a piece of code.

On the other hand, formatted binaries are those binary files that have a format specification so that you can parse it. Examples of formatted binaries are the Windows executable (image) files and object files that follow the Portable Executable (PE) format, the specification of which is available online: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/debug/pe-format.

For the purpose of Ghidra...