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You're reading from  Learning Linux Binary Analysis

Product typeBook
Published inFeb 2016
Reading LevelIntermediate
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781782167105
Edition1st Edition
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Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill
Ryan "elfmaster" O'Neill
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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.
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Identifying reverse text padding infections


This is a virus infection technique that we discussed in Chapter 4, ELF Virus Technology – Linux/Unix Viruses. The idea is that a virus or parasite can make room for its code by extending the text segment in reverse. The program header for the text segment will look strange if you know what you're looking for.

Let's take a look at an ELF 64-bit binary that has been infected with a virus that uses this parasite infection method:

readelf -l ./infected_host1

Elf file type is EXEC (Executable file)
Entry point 0x3c9040
There are 9 program headers, starting at offset 225344

Program Headers:
 Type         Offset             VirtAddr           PhysAddr
              FileSiz            MemSiz              Flags  Align
 PHDR         0x0000000000037040 0x0000000000400040 0x0000000000400040
              0x00000000000001f8 0x00000000000001f8  R E    8
 INTERP       0x0000000000037238 0x0000000000400238 0x0000000000400238
              0x000000000000001c 0x000000000000001c...
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Learning Linux Binary Analysis
Published in: Feb 2016Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781782167105

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