Quick introduction to reverse engineering for beginners

Chapter 5
Tools
∙ IDA as disassembler. Older freeware version is available for downloading: http://www.hex-rays.com/
idapro/idadownfreeware.htm.
∙ Microsoft Visual Studio Express 1 : Stripped-down Visual Studio version, convenient for simple expreiments.
∙ Hiew 2 for small modifications of code in binary files.
5.0.1 Debugger
tracer 3 instead of debugger.
I stopped to use debugger eventually, because all I need from it is to spot some function’s arguments
while execution, or registers’ state at some point. To load debugger each time is too much, so I wrote a small
utility tracer. It has console-interface, working from command-line, allow to intercept function execution,
set breakpoints at arbitrary places, spot registers’ state, modify it, etc.
However, as for learning, it’s highly advisable to trace code in debugger manually, watch how register’s
state changing (for example, classic SoftICE, OllyDbg, WinDbg highlighting changed registers), flags, data,
change them manually, watch reaction, etc.
1 http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/
2 http://www.hiew.ru/
3 http://conus.info/gt/
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