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  • Book Overview & Buying Reverse Engineering Armv8-A Systems
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Reverse Engineering Armv8-A Systems

Reverse Engineering Armv8-A Systems

By : Austin Kim
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Reverse Engineering Armv8-A Systems

Reverse Engineering Armv8-A Systems

By: Austin Kim

Overview of this book

Unlock the secrets hidden in binary code without needing the source! Written by a Linux kernel engineer and author with over 14 years of industry experience, this book lays a solid foundation in reverse engineering and takes you from curious analyst to expert. You’ll master advanced techniques to dissect kernel binaries, including kernel module files, vmlinux, and vmcore, giving you the power to analyze systems at their core. This practical, three-part journey starts with the essentials of reverse engineering, introducing the key features of Armv8-A processors and the ELF file format. The second part walks you through the reverse-engineering process, from Arm environment setup to using static and dynamic analysis tools, including innovative methods for analyzing kernel binaries and the powerful debugging tool uftrace. The final part covers security, exploring TrustZone and the latest security techniques to safeguard Arm devices at the hardware level. By the end of this reverse engineering book, you'll have comprehensive Armv8-A expertise and the practical skills to analyze any binary with confidence while leveraging advanced security features to harden your systems.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
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Preface
Lock Free Chapter
1
Part I: Fundamentals of Armv8-A Architecture
7
Part II: Background Knowledge for Binary Analysis
11
Part III: Unlocking Key Binary Analysis Skills for Reverse Engineering
17
Part IV: Security Features in Armv8-A Systems
20
Other Books You May Enjoy
21
Index

Identifying a structure using a function pointer

In the previous section, we determined the base address of the task_struct structure by identifying a specific magic value stored at the lowest address of the process stack.

In this section, we will explore a similar approach: finding a structure’s base address using a known function address. This method is particularly useful for analyzing kernel memory structures, making it a valuable technique for debugging and binary analysis.

Data structures that store function addresses

In the Linux kernel, many data structures store function addresses to manage various operations dynamically. One example is the stack field in the task_struct structure, which we discussed in the previous section. In many cases, these function addresses serve as function pointers, which are used to invoke function calls during execution.

Now, we will analyze the address of an interrupt handler function and use it to determine the base address...

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