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You're reading from  Learning Linux Binary Analysis

Product typeBook
Published inFeb 2016
Reading LevelIntermediate
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781782167105
Edition1st Edition
Languages
C
Tools
Linux
Concepts
Data Analysis
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Author (1)
Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill
Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill
author image
Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill

Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill is a computer security researcher and software engineer with a background in reverse engineering, software exploitation, security defense, and forensics technologies. He grew up in the computer hacker subculture, the world of EFnet, BBS systems, and remote buffer overflows on systems with an executable stack. He was introduced to system security, exploitation, and virus writing at a young age. His great passion for computer hacking has evolved into a love for software development and professional security research. Ryan has spoken at various computer security conferences, including DEFCON and RuxCon, and also conducts a 2-day ELF binary hacking workshop. He has an extremely fulfilling career and has worked at great companies such as Pikewerks, Leviathan Security Group, and more recently Backtrace as a software engineer. Ryan has not published any other books, but he is well known for some of his papers published in online journals such as Phrack and VXHeaven. Many of his other publications can be found on his website at http://www.bitlackeys.org.
Read more about Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill

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Stub mechanics and the userland exec

First, it is necessary to understand that a software protector is actually made up of two programs:

  • Protection phase code: The program that applies the protection to the target binary

  • Runtime engine or stub: The program that is merged with the target binary that is responsible for deobfuscation and anti-debugging at runtime

The protector program can vary greatly depending on the types of protection that are being applied to the target binary. Whatever type of protection is being applied to the target binary must be understood by the runtime code. The runtime code (or stub) must know how to decrypt or deobfuscate the binary that it is merged with. In most cases of software protection, there is a relatively simple runtime engine merged with the protected binary; its sole purpose is to decrypt the binary and pass control to the decrypted binary in memory.

This type of runtime engine is not so much an engine—really—and we call it a stub. The stub is generally...

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Learning Linux Binary Analysis
Published in: Feb 2016Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781782167105
© 2016 Packt Publishing Limited All Rights Reserved

Author (1)

author image
Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill

Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill is a computer security researcher and software engineer with a background in reverse engineering, software exploitation, security defense, and forensics technologies. He grew up in the computer hacker subculture, the world of EFnet, BBS systems, and remote buffer overflows on systems with an executable stack. He was introduced to system security, exploitation, and virus writing at a young age. His great passion for computer hacking has evolved into a love for software development and professional security research. Ryan has spoken at various computer security conferences, including DEFCON and RuxCon, and also conducts a 2-day ELF binary hacking workshop. He has an extremely fulfilling career and has worked at great companies such as Pikewerks, Leviathan Security Group, and more recently Backtrace as a software engineer. Ryan has not published any other books, but he is well known for some of his papers published in online journals such as Phrack and VXHeaven. Many of his other publications can be found on his website at http://www.bitlackeys.org.
Read more about Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill

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