Chapter 14. Patching Binaries and Other IDA Limitations

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One of the most frequently asked questions by new or prospective IDA users is “How can I use IDA to patch binaries?” The simple answer is “You can’t.” IDA’s intended purpose is to assist you in understanding the behavior of a binary by offering you the best disassembly possible. IDA is not designed to make it easy for you to modify the binaries you are examining. Not wanting to take no for an answer, die-hard patchers often follow up with questions such as “What about the Edit ▸ Patch Program menu?” and “What is the purpose of File ▸ Produce File ▸ Create EXE File?” In this chapter we discuss ...

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