Training/Intermediate/Binary Analysis Basics
Intermediate Track3 hours

Binary Analysis Basics

3 guided sections and curated resources to get you contest-ready.

Lesson Playbook

3 sections
1

RE Goals

Reverse engineering is about understanding program logic.

Common CTF targets:

  • password checks
  • hidden strings
  • simple crypto/encoding routines
2

Triage

Do quick checks before decompiling.

file challenge
strings -n 6 challenge | head -n 40

# macOS (Linux uses ldd)
otool -L challenge
3

Debugging

Break at main, step through checks, inspect registers/memory.

# Linux (gdb)
gdb -q ./challenge
break main
run
next

# macOS (lldb)
lldb ./challenge
breakpoint set -n main
run

Further Resources

3 links
← Back to Intermediate pathXSS & CSRF AttacksAdvanced Cryptanalysis