I have a binary file which is potentially a virus and I wish to look into its internals. I need to be cautious as I don't want it to run on my system. That's why I ruled out gdb.
I've searched and skimmed various sites on decompilers but, I haven't been able to figure out the internals. Does the decompiler actually execute the code in someway? (again, I don't want the file to run on my system in any way).
Using a VM is not an option as I have a low-RAM system. What are the risks of running a decompiler to analyze a potentially malicious executable.