Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#1

Post by bcattle » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

Too few people in the world understand technology. Of those, the vast majority don't do anything creative with it. I would put myself in this category. A few people are extraordinarily creative and come up with the exploits we read about in the news.

Let's say you're a competent programmer with minimal prior exposure to security. What should you read/do to learn how to see and engineer these kinds of exploits? I don't want to be Picasso, I just want to learn how to paint so I understand how he does it.

For the record, I'd say a working hands-on knowledge of this should inform the design of any system.

Is it a person-to-person oral tradition? Is it on some private message boards somewhere? Text files? There used to be 2600 Magazine, does anyone still read that?

Maybe it's all of the above. Where is the best place for somebody smart to start reading/inspecting/programming and quickly learn what matters?

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#2

Post by jiggy2011 » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:30 PM UTC

Depends on what you are trying to exploit I imagine, there are a huge number of different techniques out there.

Have a look at http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1

and if you can get some sample exploit code and study it.

Then perhaps study some of your own programs with a more devious mindset and figure out what you have forgotten to take into account.

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#3

Post by far-I » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:34 PM UTC

yes, 2600 still exists. I buy it sometimes.It's good stuff.

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#4

Post by pandemicsyn » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:38 PM UTC

I'm not sure about recent versions but the first edition of "Hacking: The Art of Exploitation" was great a few years ago.

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#5

Post by jonaslejon » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:39 PM UTC

The best way is to start from the beginning, in other words read "Smashing the stack for fun and profit". These technics doesn't work on current operating systems but gives to a great start http://insecure.org/stf/smashstack.html

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#6

Post by crankyadmin » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

Read as much as you can about assembly. Debuggers are your best friend. Pick a target (app, iPhone, xbox, whatever). Attach debugger and step through the code and learn possible entry vectors (buffer overflow, loading for arbitrary file i.e. pdfs, so forth). Once you have an entry vector you essentially have an exploit, the rest is developing that exploit to do something "useful".

Sorry for the shortness of this response, if people are interested I can throw together a couple of blog posts.

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#7

Post by dacilselig » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:43 PM UTC

crankyadmin wrote: post #6

Read as much as you can about assembly. Debuggers are your best friend. Pick a target (app, iPhone, xbox, whatever). Attach debugger and step through the code and learn possible entry vectors (buffer overflow, loading for arbitrary file i.e. pdfs, so forth). Once you have an entry vector you essentially have an exploit, the rest is developing that exploit to do something "useful". Sorry for the shortness of this resp…

I would be interested in seeing some of those blogs

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#8

Post by ihodes » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:43 PM UTC

tptacek (of Matasano) has a list of books on Amazon he has suggested for learning just that: http://www.amazon.com/lm/R2EN4JTQOCHNBA

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#9

Post by deyan » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

Fravia's portal on reverse engineering used to be a great starting point. Starting with Assembly and (old) Phrack articles as others have suggested is a great idea as well.

Re: Ask HN: How do you learn to develop exploits?

#10

Post by lyaunzbe » Sat, Jun 16, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

crankyadmin wrote: post #6

Read as much as you can about assembly. Debuggers are your best friend. Pick a target (app, iPhone, xbox, whatever). Attach debugger and step through the code and learn possible entry vectors (buffer overflow, loading for arbitrary file i.e. pdfs, so forth). Once you have an entry vector you essentially have an exploit, the rest is developing that exploit to do something "useful". Sorry for the shortness of this resp…

+1 for the blog posts.