Chapter 7. Walkthrough Four

The Protocol Problem

It’s not uncommon to be presented with an executable where the protocol is either partially unknown or completely unknown. As a reverse engineer, it’s your job to either figure out the protocol for compatibility or to check a program for any hidden features that may cause security problems. In this chapter we’ll cover tracking a protocol through a binary and recovering its message structure.

Protocol Structure

Most protocols are streams of discrete messages meant to be interpreted ...

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