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Binary analysis with angr

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Binary analysis with angr
FOSDEM 2017

The angr binary analysis platform (http://angr.io) uses libVEX as the base of its analysis engine. In this talk, we discuss the things about VEX that make it attractive for static analysis and symbolic execution, its pitfalls, and ways that it can be improved, including the changes we have made in our fork of libVEX.

Agenda

  • The goals of static analysis and symbolic execution on binary code
  • Brief overview of competing analysis IRs
  • Design of angr structured around libVEX
    • PyVEX, FFI wrapper of libVEX objects into python
    • simuvex, symbolic implementation of most VEX operations, ccalls, and dirty calls
  • Pitfalls we've encountered
    • VEX is not truly SSA
    • libVEX is not designed for fault tolerance
    • libVEX's multiarch support is a little shoddy
    • Licensing concerns
  • Our patches to libVEX
    • The only real thing stopping us from submitting our patches upstream is manpower
  • The possibility of a simplified python interface for writing lifters
  • angr
    • symbolic execution
    • static analyses
      • control-flow recovery
      • binary rewriting
      • type inference (sort of)
      • value-set analysis

Speakers: Andrew Dutcher