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 6: Scripting Malware Analysis

In this chapter, we will apply the scripting capabilities of Ghidra to malware analysis. By using and writing Ghidra scripts, you will be able to analyze malware in a more efficient way.

You will learn how to statically resolve the Kernel32 API hashed functions used by Alina shellcode, which was superficially analyzed in the previous chapter.

The Flat APIs are simple but powerful versions of the full-fledged complex Ghidra API. They are a great starting point for anyone looking to develop Ghidra modules and/or scripts.

We will start by classifying the Ghidra Flat API functions into categories in order to get more comfortable when looking for a function. Following that, we will look at how to iterate over the code using Java and Python, and, finally, we will use the mentioned code to deobfuscate malware.

To deobfuscate is to convert a program that is difficult to understand into one that is simple, understandable, and straightforward...