ReverseEngineerBook

Dennis Yurichev released an excellent reversing book for free, “Reverse Engineering for Beginners”. This allows readers who eager to learn reversing to do so systematically without worrying about affordability. The book is available in both English and Russian version, and full and (lite) introductory version. If you are looking for Korean version, it is also available thanks to 민병호 (translator) and Acorn Press - “실전 연습으로 완성하는 리버싱”. All challenges/exercises/problems/tasks are accessible here.

With a lot of fruitful exercises, I found it very useful with the tool, C/C++ to assembly visualizer. Literally, it visualizes the relationship between C/C++ and assembly code via an awesome HTML web interface. It takes advantage of Node.js.

Here is a simple step to install the interface.

$ sudo apt-get install npm
... (omitted) ...

$ npm install -d
... (omitted) ...
cluster@0.7.7 node_modules/cluster
├── log@1.4.0
└── mkdirp@0.5.1 (minimist@0.0.8)

express@3.0.0-rc4 node_modules/express
├── methods@0.0.1
├── fresh@0.1.0
├── range-parser@0.0.4
├── cookie@0.0.4
├── crc@0.2.0
├── commander@0.6.1
├── mkdirp@0.3.3
├── debug@2.2.0 (ms@0.7.1)
├── send@0.0.4 (mime@1.2.6)
└── connect@2.4.4 (pause@0.0.1, bytes@0.1.0, qs@0.4.2, formidable@1.0.11)

stylus@0.53.0 node_modules/stylus
├── css-parse@1.7.0
├── debug@2.2.0 (ms@0.7.1)
├── mkdirp@0.5.1 (minimist@0.0.8)
├── source-map@0.1.43 (amdefine@1.0.0)
├── glob@3.2.11 (inherits@2.0.1, minimatch@0.3.0)
└── sax@0.5.8

forever@0.15.1 node_modules/forever
├── path-is-absolute@1.0.0
├── object-assign@3.0.0
├── colors@0.6.2
├── clone@1.0.2
├── timespan@2.3.0
├── nssocket@0.5.3 (eventemitter2@0.4.14, lazy@1.0.11)
├── optimist@0.6.1 (wordwrap@0.0.3, minimist@0.0.10)
├── cliff@0.1.10 (eyes@0.1.8, colors@1.0.3)
├── winston@0.8.3 (cycle@1.0.3, stack-trace@0.0.9, eyes@0.1.8, isstream@0.1.2, async@0.2.10, pkginfo        @0.3.1)
├── shush@1.0.0 (strip-json-comments@0.1.3, caller@0.0.1)
├── utile@0.2.1 (deep-equal@1.0.1, ncp@0.4.2, async@0.2.10, i@0.3.4, mkdirp@0.5.1, rimraf@2.5.0)
├── prettyjson@1.1.3 (colors@1.1.2, minimist@1.2.0)
├── nconf@0.6.9 (ini@1.3.4, async@0.2.9, optimist@0.6.0)
├── forever-monitor@1.6.0 (minimatch@2.0.10, ps-tree@0.0.3, broadway@0.3.6, chokidar@1.4.2)
└── flatiron@0.4.3 (optimist@0.6.0, director@1.2.7, prompt@0.2.14, broadway@0.3.6)
npm info ok

If you have an error while starting npm due to node stuff, creating symbolic might help. Once you start your own web server, check out the port 8080 open as following. 

$ ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node
$ sudo npm install coffee-script

$ npm start
> Assembly@0.0.1 start /root/gits/cpp-to-assembly
> forever start -c coffee app.coffee
warn:    --minUptime not set. Defaulting to: 1000ms
warn:    --spinSleepTime not set. Your script will exit if it does not stay up for at least 1000ms
info:    Forever processing file: app.coffee

$ netstat -anlpt
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8080            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      27629/nodeNow you can enjoy&nbsp;a nice illustration to map your code to assembly. You might want to use&nbsp;<a href="https://assembly.ynh.io/" target="_blank" data-mce-href="https://assembly.ynh.io/">the demo</a> as well.

Now you can enjoy a beautiful illustration to map your code to assembly, by pasting your own code. You may want to check out the demo in advance. The following example shows how the function snprintf() is converted into machine-level code in a 64-bit machine.

code_comparison