Embedded Reverse Engineering: Cracking Mobile Binaries

Architecture and Background

Seth Fogie - Embedded Reverse Engineering: Cracking Mobile Binaries Embedded Reverse Engineering: Cracking Mobile Binaries The embedded mobile market is headed for a day of reckoning when it will become the target of virus/trojan writers. To prepare for this, security experts must understand reverse-engineering fundamentals, as they apply to the pocket PC device, so they can research, investigate and understand the impact of malware and how to prevent it from spreading.

Vulnerability Analysis

Unfortunately, when it comes to understanding malware for the PPC environment, there is little guidance. The only exception to this is ironically found in the backyard of same people who would write the destructive code.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

What we are talking about is the reverse-engineering of software protection schemes. As a result, this talk will focus on the security protection schemes built into PocketPC software, and how these protections are circumvented.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Using the same tricks, tools, and techniques that crackers use to bypass anti-piracy schemes, we will demonstrate first hand how these programs are cracked using a simple 'crackme' serial validation program as an example. We will start with a discussion on the hardware environment and reverse-engineering fundamentals to provide a background and foundation for the core of the talk; a step-by-step demonstration on how to crack a real program. Seth Fogie has co-authored three security books, the latest of which (Maximum Wireless Security) has topped the best seller list for wireless security books. He is currently the VP of Airscanner, an up and coming wireless security software company. In addition, Seth also co-hosts InformIT.com's security section, where he both manages and writes articles and book reviews for Pearson's authors.