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

Chapter 11

  1. A raw binary is a file that contains unprocessed data, so it has no format in any way while formatted binaries are binary files following a format specification such that they can be parsed, for instance, by Ghidra.
  2. If the file being analyzed follows a format specification, it is much more comfortable to let the loader automatically define the bytes as code or strings, create symbols, and so on. When dealing with raw binaries you will need to manually process the data. Therefore, it is much more confortable for a reverse engineer to deal with formatted binaries when possible rather than raw binaries.
  3. Old-style DOS executable is the format for MS-DOS executable binaries. The Ghidra loader for old-style DOS executable files is developed by the following pieces of software:

    - DOSHeader.java: A Java file implementing the old-style DOS executable parser.

    - OldStyleExecutable.java: A class that uses FactoryBundledWithBinaryReader to read data from a generic byte provider...