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Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

ghidra-sre.org

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Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#41

Post by Datagenerator »

shadilay wrote: post #37
ackbar03 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean my electricity has been backdoored? Now that's paranoia on a different level, how does that work

Powerline ethernet?

Some people like me, can hear data movement on PCB's. The electrical circuit has noise signatures which change if other data is injected by Ethernet over powerline equipment. The distance from which this works is quite large, up to a few houses with consumer hardware. Fear equipment with built-in LoFi.. that's reachable without cooperation of LAN equipment..

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#42

Post by knownjorbist »

ShepherdKing wrote: post #8
NotSwift wrote: post #2

It is open source software and it can reverse engineer programs from a lot of different systems. Some people may be worried about installing a piece of software on their computer that comes from the NSA. I don't think that there are real reasons to worry. One of the tasks of the NSA is defending against cyber attacks. Having more people with good tools helps the defense. Also, you can be pretty certain that some secu…

I would be curious to know if anyone has audited this for malicious code, or how one would go about doing that in the first place. Is that kind of software auditing a use case for Ghidra? A demo of using Ghidra to audit Ghidra would be interesting I suppose.

Reflections on Trusting Trust is worth a read.

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#43

Post by ozfive »

NotSwift wrote: post #2

It is open source software and it can reverse engineer programs from a lot of different systems. Some people may be worried about installing a piece of software on their computer that comes from the NSA. I don't think that there are real reasons to worry. One of the tasks of the NSA is defending against cyber attacks. Having more people with good tools helps the defense. Also, you can be pretty certain that some secu…

These are all true statements. Greetings from Seattle, Washington, USA! No need to cc them on this post. No one should kid themselves with what NSA is working on. No one should also kid themselves with what they aren't capable of.

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#44

Post by user3939382 »

raxxorrax wrote: post #3
NotSwift wrote: post #2

It is open source software and it can reverse engineer programs from a lot of different systems. Some people may be worried about installing a piece of software on their computer that comes from the NSA. I don't think that there are real reasons to worry. One of the tasks of the NSA is defending against cyber attacks. Having more people with good tools helps the defense. Also, you can be pretty certain that some secu…

I don't think there is anything fishy here, although I don't think the NSA can just install anything on my computer, even if I were based in the US. There is a lot of bluffing when it comes to cyber security. Still it might be quite a useful tool.

If they could install a virus on Iran's air-gapped uranium centrifuge industrial control systems, I'm pretty sure they could get one on your computer.

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#45

Post by rjzzleep »

userbinator wrote: post #35
tracedddd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quite suspicious of it when it was first announced, but an open source RE tool is probably the stupidest place to put a backdoor. Author considerations aside, it’s a great tool, and does pretty well with decompiling.

How well does it decompile itself ? I've always considered that a great test, much like a self-compiling compiler is a notable milestone. (I believe IDA has a check to stop you from doing this. Cracking that was one of the "rite of passage" exercises back in the day.)

Isn't it written in Java? Why would it need to do that?

IDA has had watermarks and all sorts of other fancy stuff. The real challenge with IDA was extending the demo to allow it to save databases before they started publishing a working older free version.

I like IDA a lot more than I like all the other tools, especially since I consider the user experience and hotkeys far superior, but the other day I did look at something where the disassembly and decompilation was great compared to other tools(one of the r2+ghidra UIs). I think because flirt signatures were missing and I can't get Hexrays to sell me a new license.

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#46

Post by rembicilious »

Datagenerator wrote: post #41
shadilay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powerline ethernet?

Some people like me, can hear data movement on PCB's. The electrical circuit has noise signatures which change if other data is injected by Ethernet over powerline equipment. The distance from which this works is quite large, up to a few houses with consumer hardware. Fear equipment with built-in LoFi.. that's reachable without cooperation of LAN equipment..

When you say you can “hear data movement on PCBs”, do you mean you have some kind of superhuman ability, or that you know how to use some combination of instrumentation and analysis to “hear” the data?

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#47

Post by nextlevelwizard »

user3939382 wrote: post #44
raxxorrax wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is anything fishy here, although I don't think the NSA can just install anything on my computer, even if I were based in the US. There is a lot of bluffing when it comes to cyber security. Still it might be quite a useful tool.

If they could install a virus on Iran's air-gapped uranium centrifuge industrial control systems, I'm pretty sure they could get one on your computer.

Bribing people in generally corrupt and poor countries to smuggle a USB stick is kind a different than just breaking into random persons home in a country with relatively low corruption. Latter might actually be more difficult. Obviously depends on what your end goal is

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#48

Post by nextlevelwizard »

nix23 wrote: post #7
raxxorrax wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is anything fishy here, although I don't think the NSA can just install anything on my computer, even if I were based in the US. There is a lot of bluffing when it comes to cyber security. Still it might be quite a useful tool.

>although I don't think the NSA can just install anything on my computer If it's not connected to a network you are probably right....otherwise 100% wrong, if your a enough valuable target. And just lets say for fun your OS is 100% bulletproof, your +30 firmware's are not.

What’s with the doomer mentality. NSA isn’t some magical unicorn that can just walk through everything

Re: Ghidra: A software reverse engineering suite of tools developed by the NSA

#50

Post by vesche »

xvilka wrote: post #39

If you want to harness the power of Ghidra decompiler but without the need of installing Java - Rizin[1][2] and Cutter[3][4] (Rizin's Qt GUI) integrate Ghidra's decompiler part that is written in C++ (libdecomp) as plugin - rz-ghidra[5]. We work currently on improving the integration and the quality of output. [1] https://rizin.re [2] https://github.com/rizinorg/rizin [3] https://cutter.re [4] https://github.com/rizi…

For anyone confused (as I was) rizin is a fork of radare2. I don't have anything constructive to say other than I'm confused why the project was forked.
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