14 votes
Accepted

Why do reversers nowadays reverse engineer using decompilers and not disassemblers?

Although these terms are being used interchangeably, there is an intrinsic difference between disassembler and decompiler definitions traditionally. Let's first consider common steps involved in ...
R4444's user avatar
  • 1,767
9 votes

Are there any interactive decompilers besides HexRays?

Short answer: No, there is no other interactive decompiler, at least not for native codes. Long answer: The Hex-Rays decompiler was created with the idea of interactiveness while all the other ...
joxeankoret's user avatar
  • 4,425
9 votes

Is there a list of Ghidra's variable prefixes?

This is annoyingly hard to find the answer to. This is a good starting point, but I don't think I found everything yet. Variable names From Function.java: param_ local_ local_res temp_ From ...
hairlessbear's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

Can AI be used to write better decompilers/disassemblers?

First, you cannot answer to this question without having to define what you mean by AI... Because this is probably the worst name for a domain in computer science. Where people think about "programs ...
perror's user avatar
  • 18.9k
6 votes

IDA decompiler macro

COERCE_TYPE(x) is the same thing as *(TYPE *)&x. Hex-Rays uses COERCE_... macros when &x is illegal. For example: COERCE_DOUBLE(__PAIR__(i1,i2)) Is the same as *(double *)&__PAIR__(i1, ...
Ilfak Guilfanov's user avatar
6 votes

Decompilation techniques for DOS .COM files

My answer is a little late; newcomer to this site. The Decompiler project was initiated in order to decompile MS-DOS EXE and COM binaries. The project has both a command-line and a GUI tool: https://...
John Källén's user avatar
6 votes

Are there IDA scripts/plugins to translate/comment instructions to/with pseudocode?

You can enable the auto-comment option in IDA, to have something like this: Or also give a try to snowman, a free decompiler for IDA Pro, that is able to transform this compiled program: #include &...
jvoisin's user avatar
  • 2,506
5 votes

Is there any decompiler, which can produce a compilable result?

Unfortunately no, there is no such decompiler publicly available. All decompilers have to guess the missing information and just one wrong answer is enough to spoil the result. Second, re-...
Ilfak Guilfanov's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

Stack-pointer analysis failed

When I assembled the code, the offending instruction was: 0x6c 40 ff d1 call rcx You will need to use Change Stack Pointer command in IDA to fix this in disassembly. As ...
chentiangemalc's user avatar
4 votes

Decompiling 64bit ARMv8 Android .so library

The first tool is IDA decompiler (a plugin for IDA). As far as I know for now IDA has decompilers for x86, x64, ARM32, ARM64, PPC, PPC64, and MIPS (see here for more details, each of them costs ...
w s's user avatar
  • 8,353
4 votes
Accepted

IDA hex-rays decompiler not loaded

The answer is that I was trying to open a 32bit file in idaq64 and so the decompiler doesn't work.
eyal karni's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Split variable in Hexrays decompiler?

I don't think there's a way to add a new function variable, since the decompiler creates those based on registers and stack locations. However, in situations where it's really annoying, creating a ...
mayahustle's user avatar
4 votes

Can AI be used to write better decompilers/disassemblers?

Although I initially voted to close this question as primarily opinion-based, given both answers side with the same general answer ("No!") I'll answer as well. I just love being the devil's advocate. ...
NirIzr's user avatar
  • 11.7k
4 votes

Is PNF's JEB Reverse Engineering platform written in pure Java?

There's no technical limitation preventing software development in Java verses C. The only major advantage is execution speed. Moreover, as JEB is directed towards Java programs (android APKs) writing ...
NirIzr's user avatar
  • 11.7k
4 votes

Decompile a NodeJS compiled program maybe by NEXE

Here is the most complete source code of this malware I can find. its malware known as piratestealer: https://github.com/teddybearsz/shitasssrcdonttouchitpleasepleaseplease/tree/...
Alice's user avatar
  • 141
3 votes

Can AI be used to write better decompilers/disassemblers?

No! Reason is that AI is dumb, much more than you think it is. All it can do is matching patterns to predetermine output. And here are two main problem to use it to decompile code or to recreate "...
Rokta's user avatar
  • 39
3 votes
Accepted

Tools to translate x86-64 ELF to PPC (or i386 decompilation)

For 1, there is QEMU which can be built for PPC and supports i386 and x86-64 emulation. If you run Linux, there may already be a precompiled package available for your distro. For 2, there are some ...
Igor Skochinsky's user avatar
  • 36.2k
3 votes

Can we decompile an .exe or .dll as %100?

Since the compilation output of .NET languages is MSIL, which is quite readable itself, it can be transformed back to (almost) original source code. There are many applications which can do that. My ...
Michael Pittino's user avatar
3 votes

Edit codes in .Net Reflector with Reflexil (Compile Window)

This blog that I wrote a a few years ago describes all the steps to modify a .net binary with Reflector and Reflexil. Not sure which steps you're missing but I recommended to read&compare. ...
Remko's user avatar
  • 3,188
3 votes

Edit codes in .Net Reflector with Reflexil (Compile Window)

Decompile a function with .NET Reflector, and in the Instructions tab of the Reflexil window, right click on an instruction and choose Replace all with code...: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...
Jason Geffner's user avatar
3 votes
Accepted

Decompile Python for ELF Binaries

It can be said with certainty that your binary has been compiled with PyInstaller. Searching for the string "Error detected starting Python VM." leads to the PyInstaller repo. Now that you know it's ...
0xec's user avatar
  • 6,030
3 votes
Accepted

How do I make a hex literal a decimal literal in Ghidra?

Right click on the number Convert -> Unsigned Decimal:
Simeon Pilgrim's user avatar
3 votes

Template code with 0xcccccccc in every ghidra decompiled function for some executables

0xCC stands for int 3 in x86 architecture, that is a special interrupt used to implement software breakpoint by debuggers. So, this code sets the memory to int 3 interrupts for debugging purposes. ...
bart1e's user avatar
  • 3,369
3 votes

Template code with 0xcccccccc in every ghidra decompiled function for some executables

This is probably code compiled by Visual C++ in debug build setting. In such case, the compiler generates code which fills all stack variables with the byte 0xCC, so that any uninitialized value is ...
Igor Skochinsky's user avatar
  • 36.2k
3 votes

Can I decompile a file if I have a compiler?

No. In most cases, you cannot obtain the actual source code just because you have the compiler available. However, it depends on the language. If the source code was written in .NET, for example, a ...
learnerX's user avatar
  • 233
3 votes
Accepted

How to decompile /usr/bin/ls

From the decompiler view it cleary states there's no function. Decompiler works when you have one - it shows code of a function. So, if that's the beginning of a function (it might be) just create ...
Paweł Łukasik's user avatar
3 votes

How to decompile /usr/bin/ls

Kevin, ls comes in coreutils. The best way to experiment with these programs is to download and manually build the binaries (in this way you can give your favorite options like -g, -O3 during ...
R4444's user avatar
  • 1,767
3 votes

Can obfuscation be applied on certain parts?

Multiple .dex files are created mostly in cases when the number of methods exceed the maximum one for .dex files, which is 65536 functions per file. Yes, ProGuard can be used to obfuscate only ...
morsisko's user avatar
  • 696
3 votes

What does Ghidra mean by ._0_3_?

you need to check the relevant disassembly and retype variable this is basically due to size difference between variable (truncation , casting ) etc in the screenshot above uvar15 is a ULONGLONG a64 ...
blabb's user avatar
  • 16.2k
2 votes
Accepted

Recognize certain components in the compiler produced assembly program

TL;DR: Hope for some magic numbers, or string constants you can xref, or you're in for a lot of manual work. Searching for an arithmetic statement that doesn't include a very specific magic number, ...
Guntram Blohm's user avatar

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