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 how to use Ghidra headless mode to analyze multiple binaries and automate tasks. We started by reviewing the most relevant parameters of Ghidra headless mode and then started to apply this knowledge with practical examples.

We learned how to create a project, populate it with binaries, analyze it, and run pre-/post-scripts over these binaries. We also learned that is possible to execute a GUI script in headless mode and a non-GUI script in headed mode, as well as the exceptions that can occur and why.

In the next chapter of this book, we will cover binary audits using Ghidra. We will take this opportunity to review the different kinds of memory corruption vulnerabilities, how to hunt them, and how to exploit them.