Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering

I am sorry for having written this review so late. This book is a true gem; a must-have for any serious software engineer. Understanding how software works under the hood is key to writing code properly -- and this book provides an insight on that topic in an absolutely BRILLIANT MANNER. Having a fair bit of reverse engineering experience myself, I have found this book to be extremely concise and detaild -- and I have learned a fair bit of new material while reading it. There is no dull moment in this book. The author (who is clearly a gifted writer) explains reverse-engineering-related topics in a fascinating and unique manner, and, within this work, he actually cements the way in which reverse engineering should always be taught. Written by a true master, the book is very pedagogic; every chapter is accompanied by detailed examples -- which make the discussed topics crystal-clear. I would have given this book more than five stars, had I been able to -- and I can recommend it to every software deveopler without a trace of hesitation; actually, it is now that I have bought an additional copy as a gift to a friend. Rest assured that this book will be a crucial part in your collection of tech books, just like it is in mine. To sum it all up (and as it becomes clear from the above written): I think that this book is a magnificent work of art (no less), and I would even dare to say that I enjoyed it more than any tech book I ever owned. With all the aforementioned complements and my vain attempts to describe the magnificence of this work, words still can't fully do justice to this book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This well written gem contains everything needed for a solid foundation in x86 reversing. It will walk you through completing several daunting tasks and does not shy away from getting neck-deep in the nitty gritty details, including pages upon pages of groan-inducing disassembler listings. Be warned that if you just read the book and don't try following the examples on your computer, you will be missing out on a lot and may get the impression that reversing is as easy as the author makes it out to be in this book. There is also plenty of relatively pain-free discussion of high level theory, which comes as a nice relief after going through those previously mentioned pages of disassembler listings. I picked up this book to get better at exploiting software, and was not disappointed. However, this is not a book about exploit development. If anything, it is a book about software cracking, complete with a 50 page walkthrough of an intermediate level protection scheme. The chapter on finding security vulnerabilities is actually very weak, as is the chapter on malware analysis. Despite this, I was not disappointed because the fundamental reversing skills acquired by working through this book are also invaluable base skills for exploit development. My main gripe with this book is it's sole focus on the Windows x86 evironment. I would expect a hypothetical second edition to include many pages on reversing x86-64 code, as well as a chapter on Android and iOS reversing.

This is a good introductory book on reverse engineering. I would say it best suits somebody that has some years of developing experience in high-level languages such as C/C++ or Delphi/Pascal, while also knows something about Assembly language -- and of course with a strong curiosity for any "secrets" under the hood. From time to time I found myself nodding while reading this book. My work invloves using some software for modeling transportation systems but most of the time the details of the underlying models that software relies on are not well documented. The information in this book helps me quickly learn how to reverse and get the information I want to know. Besides this book is very well written thus very enjoyable to read. In this regard, I would like to say - as an extra bonus I learned a lot from the author's writing ! (Sure, English is not my native lanuage but I have to write a lot technical reports in English for my daily work) I love this book. Highly recommended!

As a preliminary review without having completed the text yet, I have to say that this book is very well focused for the Windows developer. Focus is important because reverse engineering really puts one directly into nearly any possible aspect of the modern computer. This text will please even the moderately advanced programmer, although the first quarter or so might seem like too much review for the Windows C++ programmer. The .NET programmer will really benefit, though, since the focus through the Windows layers and into machine code will reveal a lot to the high-level person who hasn't yet had a chance to delve into 'internals.' I think the book serves as a "pro" book for someone with C++/Windows experience by tying things together and moving to its reversing core while at the same time serving as an "intermediate" book, ironically, for the high-level programmer who will read it more for a qualitative comprehension and have to go out and read more 'internals' books (like Jeff Richter's books) if interested in deeper understanding.

While the author gives a lot of useful high-level information about reverse engineering, he makes some fairly blatant errors from time to time when it comes to details. These errors are scattered throughout the book, and don't seem to be specific to any one topic. I suspect it may just be a matter of fast writing, poor editing, and a lack of diligence on the part of the technical reviewers. In any event, it's a good idea to have a secondary source of information available to verify what the author says.

Tuve que devolverlo porque llegó dañado del lomo. Me entregaron rápidamente otro.

Che dire, si tratta di un grande classico del reverse engineering da avere assolutamente. Non fatevi ingannare dall’anno di scrittura di questo manuale, i contenuti sono comunque ancora validi e di grande valore. Una chicca: vengono descritti i ransomware e crypto locker (seppure con altro nome) con molti anni di anticipo rispetto alla loro effettiva comparsa avvenuta solo recentemente.

In diesem Buch werden viele Bereiche des Reverse Engineerings ausführlich erklärt. Wer es nicht weiß dem sei allerdings gesagt, dass es nur um Reverse Engineering von Windows Software geht. Hauptsächlich geht es also um native Windowsanwendungen, die als Binary vorliegen. Zu Beginn des Buches bekommt man eine kurze Einführung in die Windowsarchitektur und einen Überblick über die benötigten Tools (Debugger,Hexdump,...). Anschließend werden als erstes Beispiel undokumentierte WINAPI-Funktionen reversed und in einem Beispielprogramm in C getestet. Neben der Analyse von Programmen gibt es natürlich auch einen größeren Abschnitt zum Thema Cracken von Software. Hier werden unterschiedlich schwierige Crackmes gecrackt bzw. ein Keygen erstellt. Der letzte Abschnitt des Buches zeigt auch wie man Programme für die .NET-Plattform decompilieren und somit cracken/analyiseren kann. Im Anhang des Buches wird noch auf Details der Assemblerprogrammierung und technische Grundlagen wie Callingconventions eingegangen, was ganz nützlich ist wenn man da nicht jedes Detail im Kopf hat. Alles in allem kann ich sagen, dass sich der Kauf gelohnt hat auch wenn ich noch nicht die Zeit gehabt habe jedes Kapitel komplett durchzuarbeiten. Am meisten lernt man ja wenn man sich gleich immer zum Computer setzt und die gezeigten Techniken ausprobiert. Weiters ist anzumerken, dass dieses Buch bereits im Jahr 2005 entstanden ist, aber wie ich finde hat es nicht viel an Gültigkeit verloren. Natürlich könnte man bemängeln, dass es eigentlich nur um Windows geht, obwohl dass aus dem Titel nicht hervorgeht. Allerdings ist das nicht so störend, da einerseits die meiste Software vermutlich unter Windows läuft bzw. man hoffentlich so viel Grundlagenwissen lernt, dass sich die gelernten Techniken leicht auf andere Plattformen übertragen lassen. Das Englisch ist relativ einfach gehalten und sollte mit mittelmäßigen Kenntnissen flüssig zu lesen sein.

Excellent book for understanding everything around the world of Reversing. A little dated now but still quite relevant. The author did state in the book that there will be a newer version when 64bit is more mainstream, so hopefully that isn't too far away. But still, this will give you a flying start to the world of reversing.

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