Book Image

Fuzzing Against the Machine

By : Antonio Nappa, Eduardo Blázquez
Book Image

Fuzzing Against the Machine

By: Antonio Nappa, Eduardo Blázquez

Overview of this book

Emulation and fuzzing are among the many techniques that can be used to improve cybersecurity; however, utilizing these efficiently can be tricky. Fuzzing Against the Machine is your hands-on guide to understanding how these powerful tools and techniques work. Using a variety of real-world use cases and practical examples, this book helps you grasp the fundamental concepts of fuzzing and emulation along with advanced vulnerability research, providing you with the tools and skills needed to find security flaws in your software. The book begins by introducing you to two open source fuzzer engines: QEMU, which allows you to run software for whatever architecture you can think of, and American fuzzy lop (AFL) and its improved version AFL++. You’ll learn to combine these powerful tools to create your own emulation and fuzzing environment and then use it to discover vulnerabilities in various systems, such as iOS, Android, and Samsung's Mobile Baseband software, Shannon. After reading the introductions and setting up your environment, you’ll be able to dive into whichever chapter you want, although the topics gradually become more advanced as the book progresses. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained the skills, knowledge, and practice required to find flaws in any firmware by emulating and fuzzing it with QEMU and several fuzzing engines.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Foundations
5
Part 2: Emulation and Fuzzing
9
Part 3: Advanced Concepts
15
Chapter 12: Conclusion and Final Remarks

Is it so easy to find vulnerabilities?

Large software programs, such as browsers, kernels, and blockchains, are composed of millions of lines of code that have been written by human beings. This presents a significant challenge for modern software development, as it is difficult for any individual to read through such vast amounts of code. For example, it would take an estimated half a million pages, in A4 size with a font of 10pt, to read through the code of Chromium (which is estimated to be around 35 million lines of code). Even someone who reads two books per year would only be able to read around 15,000 pages of A4 in their entire life, assuming they read for 50 years.

Thousands of engineers have contributed to these projects over the years, and many changes have been made to improve security, reliability, and performance. However, these three components often compete with each other, and finding optimal trade-offs is particularly complex. The challenge for a principal engineer...