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

Summary

In this chapter, you learned about the built-in Ghidra processors and their variants. You also learned what these processors look like when you're importing files using Ghidra.

You also learned about the skills you need to use for Ghidra processor module development and the SLEIGH language, which is used more for specifying than programming. By learning about this, you learned why processor modules are special. You were then introduced to processor module development by getting hands-on and analyzing the 32-bit processor variant of the x86 architecture.

Finally, you learned about the URL resources that you can use if you want to learn more about the SLEIGH specification language and write your own processor modules.

In the next chapter, we will learn how to contribute to the Ghidra project via collaborating and how to be part of the community.