Hacker Disassembling Uncovered (Uncovered series) (Paperback)

by Kris Kaspersky (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Going beyond the issues of analyzing and optimizing programs as well as creating the means of protecting information, this guide takes on the programming problem of how to go about disassembling a program with holes without its source code. Detailing hacking methods used to analyze programs using a debugger and disassembler such as virtual functions, local and global variables, branching, loops, objects and their hierarchy, and mathematical operators, this guide covers methods of fighting disassemblers, self-modifying code in operating systems, and executing code in the stack. Advanced disassembler topics such as optimizing compilers and movable code are discussed as well, and a CD-ROM that contains illustrations and the source codes for the programs is also included.

About the Author

Kris Kaspersky is the author of CD Cracking Uncovered, Hacker Debugging Uncovered, and Shellcoder's Programming Uncovered.

Product Details

• Paperback: 550 pages
• Publisher: A-List Publishing; 2nd edition (February 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931769648
• ISBN-13: 978-1931769648
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #926,780 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars solid introduction to reverse compilation techniques, September 2, 2004

By	Brian E. Mitchell (Dunwoody, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hacker Disassembling Uncovered: Powerful Techniques To Safeguard Your Programming (Paperback)

I thought this was a pretty good book. First, to the 'reviewer' (in quotes since he didnt read the book beyond the very beginning) -- very little of the book makes any use of softice. The tool mostly used is Interactive Disassembler (a commercial tool available from datarescue) but any disassembler will do.

The book is about the code typically generated by compilers of various forms (mostly c and c++, some pascal as well). If you want to understand the disassembly, you must grok what Christina Cifuentes calls idioms (instruction sequences that have an effect different than the usual intended meaning).

This book is very much a collection of idioms. It's a good primer to the art of reverse engineering, and maybe readers can move on to general decompilation papers for further study, starting with "Reverse Compilation Techniques" by Ciguentes, and moving on to more modern papers.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just use it, November 14, 2003

By	Prokash Sinha (Morgan Hill, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hacker Disassembling Uncovered: Powerful Techniques To Safeguard Your Programming (Paperback)

First the good news: Very few books give a total picture of assembler code. Usually they are text books, but this is a real hands on book to learn lot of assembler structures. How does a programs laid out(executible file format), what library functions get statically linked, and how they are resolved, how does relocation works, how does loader loads etc., etc. You would find a long lasting knowledge from this book. IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM AND/OR KERNEL MODE PROGRAMMER, IT IS A MUST. But need to go thru the exercises...

Bad news is that it seems like the examples are not tried out with MS visual studio 6.0. You will find the code generation is different, due to some inline library code (ie, strcmp() and others). It does have other mistakes in the programming, as well as in the text. Stack based code execution at the end of the book does not seem to do its job.

But still it is an excellent book to read and go thru those examples to become fairly fluent with large assembler codes, and their working. WHEN THE INFORMATION BASE IS HUGE, LOOK FOR STRUCTURE, AVOID THE DETAIL UNTIL NEEDED, this is precisely this book follows. Nothing could be worse than ignorance, so go grab one !!!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Could be called "Cracker Disassembling Uncovered"..., December 31, 2003

By	Matthew M. Shannon (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hacker Disassembling Uncovered: Powerful Techniques To Safeguard Your Programming (Paperback)

While I agree with all many of the other reviewers here, I have to profess that I thought many of the main topic areas really weren't consistent with hacking. The author takes great pains to write in terms of the circumvention of copy protection mechanisms such as passwords and serial numbers. While I will admit the author demostrates an exceptional knowledge of assembly code and debugging, it would have been nice if he covered a more diverse set of examples. Regardless, taking this book for what it's worth, I would say if you read closely and experiment with the recommended tools you'll take away a far greater understanding of assembly code and the debugging process.