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

Developing a Ghidra extension

In this section, we will cover how to create a Ghidra extension in Eclipse and then how to export it to Ghidra:

  1. First, to create a new Ghidra extension in Eclipse, click on GhidraDev | New | Ghidra Module Project…:

    Figure 4.8 – Creating a new Ghidra module project

  2. Set a name for the Ghidra project as well as the project root directory. In this case, I'm setting MyExtensions as the project name and leaving the default values for the rest of the parameters:

    Figure 4.9 – Setting the project name

  3. As you know from the previous section, Ghidra has some module templates available. Choose those that are useful for your purpose. We are choosing all of them because we want to have all the Ghidra module skeletons. Click on Next > instead of Finish to take two additional and useful steps:

    Figure 4.10 – Choosing the module templates needed for this Ghidra module project

  4. Associate a Ghidra installation with your module...