Gray Hat Hacking, Second Edition, 2nd Edition

Binary Analysis

Source code analysis will not always be possible. This is particularly true when evaluating closed source, proprietary applications. This by no means prevents the reverse engineer from examining an application; it simply makes such an examination a bit more difficult. Binary auditing requires a somewhat different skill set than source code auditing. Whereas a competent C programmer can audit C source code regardless of what type of architecture the code is intended to be compiled on, auditing binary code requires additional skills in assembly language, executable file formats, compiler behavior, operating system internals, and various other lower-level skills. Books offering to teach you how to program are a dime a dozen, while ...