Reverse Engineering 101: How to Dissect and Master Any Platform

Ever wanted to be a Reverse Engineer? Don't know where to start?
In this video, I go over my suggested path to become a well-rounded Reverse Engineer. This strategy applies to any platform and should give you a solid foundation to pursue even specialized RE roles in the future.
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Timestamp:
00:00 Intro to RE
00:30 Programming Basics
01:45 Assembly Code
03:30 Windows RE + Book Recommendation
04:08 Analysis Tools + Dynamic Analysis
05:08 Obfuscation Techniques
05:39 Platform Specifics
06:34 Malware Analysis
07:46 Android RE
10:44 iOS RE
12:30 Desktop Platforms
16:48 Sharpening Skills
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LaurieWired Socials:
linktr.ee/lauriewired

[@Themrhamoud]

i would like to add a simple note 📝 Before going into Reverse malware read about operating system internals like windows internals api , handlers , threads , process , services , register and etc.. to gain a good idea about malware functionality this is one of my favourite channel and glad to be one of the luckiest subscribers. ❤

[@jorgevillarreal2245]

Any sources you'll recommend to study these topics ?

[@Themrhamoud]

@@jorgevillarreal2245 kzbin.info/aero/PLJgB-VjEB3Q4h2L1CB3BX52DLVx-m9zV8&si=jJJVe2wm0EZ_UFCM

[@MAX-nv6yj]

An important note that I will put into consideration. Thank you so much

[@MaxProgramming-uv6br]

WOW you are the best broooooo I love you @@MAX-nv6yj "My another account self-encourgement XD"

[@ChineseRatfaceCHANG]

​@@jorgevillarreal2245windows via c/c++ published by Microsoft books

[@DotDager]

Whoa, very underrated channel. Great content and amazing production level!

[@hrdcpy]

The UI and set background are next level! What a cool person.

[@horodoomwolf]

Qué hacía por aquí el Dot Dager xd

[@reductor_]

For learning programming and assembly, I would add to that get familiar with compiler explorer, it makes it easier to see how your C/C++ code compiles into assembly, especially when it comes to how optimizers change things.

[@angelsv]

Love the Copland OS window along with all the hardware in the background, really nice setup.

[@frankjansson7563]

Always a treat with your videos. I think it's easy to forget "your not born good, you get good". And now with all information available, it's like a candy store with sweets of different sizes, colors and tastes. Thanks for a great video Laurie, have a nice day!

[@oneaccountBball]

stop fantasizing and focus

[@ahnaftech]

@@oneaccountBball let the man exercise his freedom of speech

[@vectoralphaAI]

This girl is smarter than all the engineers i know. So cool.

[@nine7295]

She's an actor

[@vectoralphaAI]

@nine7295 no she's not. She's an engineer.

[@davidomar742]

that's what happens when you associate yourself with a bunch of soydevs using vscode

[@vectoralphaAI]

@davidomar742 VSCode isn't bad at all. It's an amazing IDE. And most of them use other IDEs and text editors like Vim and Visual Studio. Don't assume cause that shows you're insecurities.

[@Balloonbot]

@@nine7295 When you meet a woman for the first time - whenever that will be, you'll notice they're more human than you think and some are capable of learning about computers and stuff. For sure more than your anime body pillow.

[@invorokner282]

I've always said that in order to understand computers and programming you'd need to learn some things outside of programming. but coding in C/C++ helped me a lot in understanding other things. Today I am working in the security sphere, I have a high interest in reverse engineering and 'applicative' side of cyber security. The road is very long to get to the point where you even understand what the program is actually doing even if the program is very simple. I totally agree that you'll have to learn programming, but there is so much more than that. The tongue of truth has spoken; upon a velvet mat upon a cozy seat. Yet dare I speak of long road ahead and mysteries enshrouded within. If fate wills it, those chosen few the knowledge will greet. And so shall it be, nerds are for the win. (I know I know, cheeky little piece).

[@TheGmr140]

Reverse engineering is a true art and for those gifted 😊😊😊

[@punpompur]

This is awesome. A few years ago when I was in college pursuing a comp sci degree, I came across the concept of reverse engineering. I was just beginning to learn programming and still trying to understand if I want to actually do this. Now that I have delved into some projects as a developer, I can appreciate and understand what is being discussed here and feel that my interest in the topic is renewed.

[@davec1406]

I'm really impressed by the production quality of your videos! I also really dig the old school desktop UI 🍎😎

[@mytechnotalent]

Well said Laurie thank you for teaching and inspiring folks into RE!

[@nicko3151]

would love a series on this with hands on

[@ghostlyghola4224]

Love all the Serial Experiments Lain themed stuff!

[@akastewart]

Needs a 20th Anniversary Macintosh in the background though. 😉

[@rickard9294]

I am glad I found this channel and I look forward to watch more videos and hopefully learn some programming which I have wanted to do for a long time.

[@fusionid6647]

I came at the right damn time, i was looking to reverse engineer a file format from a app that was abandoned that i used to use, and i cant lie i chickened out of it after checking out the whole topic on youtube but i think this gives me a lot more confidence to give it a full send. thanks for the video!

[@thefanboy3285]

Godspeed brother. May you foind success in your quest.

[@shirishinherspace]

Finally it's here, thanks laurie, you are the best !

[@ZarzenLetsPlay]

I fucking love everything about this channel especially the presentation is off the charts!

[@SubActif]

I discovered this channel recently and beyond the subjects, all the reminders of the animated "Serial Experiments Lain" which I loved are so many little sweets to savor at the same time as the subject of the video

[@Marcos-tp4lm]

Great video as always Laurie! Thank you!

[@arsnakehert]

Okay, all the Lain aesthetics and the Apple "whisper" voice have me hooked into your channel

[@notandyvee]

Yes... of course that's the reason.

[@ifraanco]

Thanks for the book recommendation. Last year I took a c programming class and a computer architecture class in college and I really enjoyed them. Pd: I love the retro style of your channel, cheers!

[@svenvandevelde1]

Well done. Educational and well structured.

[@1anre]

You touched on all the good points in this domain. Keep the content coming

[@davidduron3590]

Self taught (paid) SWE here, really interested in RE and malware, glad i found this channel. Looking forward to learning more

[@ragnarlothbrok367]

True that you don't have to be a programmer at all, but knowing the data structures and algos, to be able to tell IE a Trie from a Hashmap or O(n) vs O(1) type of operation can be absolutely crucial when you go deeper, I mean even your advanced assembly knowledge without it will be like trying to play basketball without seeing the field and knowing its shape, so get to know basic rules and tactics before you start analyzing the game, your brain will thank you by not exploding

[@AAa-cx6sy]

I cant believe im learning more in this video than i have in my whole CS career.....

[@freemasry-gr8hw]

why every comment on a youtube educational video is like this, then just don't get into CS degrees bros do economics, psychology or just math

[@meatdash5914]

man i wish i had something like this when i was younger, good vid

[@0x0007N]

I truly adore you and your work.

[@Rohorg]

That content is gold! Thank you.

[@willitine]

Interesting video about reverse engineering and how it works.

[@CallousCoder]

I would say that programming experience is a must for reverse engineering. You need to after all be able to read the assembly or reverse generated C. And you can only read and understand it when you know how to write it.

[@newest_latest]

Thanks Laurie!

[@nashme11]

Thanks for the great videos explaining this field you work in. I am also interested in the displays you have in the background. I think I see an Agilent scope like one I have - a 54622D, and possibly another vintage hp scope. Also I think I see some old color Trinitron monitors as well. But explaining your interest in those is for another video.

[@XGNPerformance]

I do firmware reverse engineering for honda car ecus, and I'm making a living on it. I started in less than 2 years ago. No, I still don't know how to code 😂. But what I do, people say it is pretty unique, and people come to me for it.

[@williea.9704]

What ISA are Honda ECUs?

[@SiamAlamOfficial]

Your videos are great!

[@undeadpresident]

This definitely takes dedication.

[@MaxProgramming-uv6br]

New sub keep going these videos are amazing

[@0xSh1m1]

Amazing video! Will a video on Vulnerability Research be released later?

[@willitine]

Will RE also help me learn how to hack video games for some awesome mods and homebrew?

[@kakomu]

As an aside, reverse engineering doesn’t necessarily NEED to be performed on binary executables that the OS runs. An actual task I did in the past was to reverse engineer a JavaScript application. The client wanted additional functionality added to an application that was written for them, but the source was not available and they weren’t interested in having a new application written.

[@LukeAvedon]

Amazing advice. Most interesting the advice to start with x86 and not arm or even a retro one like 6502. Any videos on radare2?

[@ragnarlothbrok367]

Laurie is golden

[@onesandzeros]

Thanks Laurie, very interesting. Hadn't heard of Copland OS. I was thinking Aaron :)

[@rheiser]

Guess where Apple got the code name from? ;)

[@aurinator]

Ghidra's getting increasingly closer all the time but so far nothing unlocks all the same limitless capabilities that SoftICE did in the past. Ghidra's still kind of a pain to setup for Kernel-Mode analysis and Reverse Engineering IMO, so at the Driver level underneath everything in User Mode, and you could even intercept and alter flow of code ran in User Mode and force it to do exactly what you wanted. I don't believe you were Ring 0, but it was much closer in Kernel Mode. The more I think about it though, it could be because those same capabilities just aren't even available to End Users anymore after XP. I know NT locked things down considerably more, and I think the NT Kernel is still ultimately what's underneath modern Windows. Linux & Mac I usually avoid altogether.

[@AmeanAbdelfattah]

Just discovered this channel, interesting.

[@comosaycomosah]

i was subbed to you before but youtube decided to unsub me i guess lol...between the way this is filmed, your cool monitors and stuff, and the copland os outline thing this is a vibe!

[@hadibq]

now you're talking about this, I'm missing SoftIce days and spending hours writing down "on paper" instructions chunks inside unlimited loops and following the jumps and testing modified flags.....ahhh nostaligia!! another thing, not sure I'm right, but I have the feeling we find less organized indepth information as before... unless you're into web dev.

[@Slycooper2456]

Burnout was such a fun game!

[@standardtemplateconstruct1596]

your expo lab is so cool. i dreamt of lab like that but life provided me with destitution of thosand moves. wonder how your workstation looks like

[@user-it8yh8tu7d]

Many C++ implementations expose many FP pointers which are typically easier to exploit toward code execution than many C implementations.

[@murtadha96]

omg it's Asuka again! :)

[@CallousCoder]

For viewers who want to do some X86 assembly I have a few videos that may help (code is always included) kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3rcenV6rr9lpbM (The screen accurate T2 PortFolio easy money program) kzbin.info/www/bejne/epexpHSBbJZjobM (Coding same wave forms out of the parallel port using a cheap home mad DAC) kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnKvh6J5dqx4g7c (Coding a multi layered star field scrolling to the left) kzbin.info/www/bejne/iV69c52EnZyNh6c (Coding raster bars on the old PCs or DosBox) kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2KUl4WJjd97jKs (A TSR keyboard sniffer I wrote in 1990 to obtain the Novell supervisor password of my college) kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqOqmHyai7Sogrs (Turbo on and off as a reaction to some hacking Adrian Black did)

[@badskulljack]

I need to know where the Lain "layer x - episode" voice is generated from! Heard it was text to voice on an old OS, but idk. Need it for animation : )

[@kamilbxl6]

you will hit millions, mark my words

[@PragandSens]

no

[@jeandutoit1413]

The simping levels are reaching critical mass. We may see a micro black hole forming in the near future.

[@kamilbxl6]

@@jeandutoit1413 sounds like someone is projecting

[@jeandutoit1413]

@@kamilbxl6 Tell me more, doctor Simpington.

[@kamilbxl6]

@@jeandutoit1413 nah I'm good

[@n15say]

but how many years could it take to learn all that? Or at least until you have learned Android RE? I know it depends of your personal situation and previous skills, but I would like to know just an estimation.

[@lauriewired]

It depends a lot on the person and their previous background as you mentioned. For Android RE, it took me about 1 year of learning before I felt confident

[@n15say]

thank u so much for your reply 💚 @@lauriewired

[@Gearrion]

From scratch your looking at a two decade long trip to master RE for x86-64. Most start when they are in highschool as a hobby to crack games.

[@davidomar742]

@@Gearrion who are you to say this?

[@fmitsinc9146]

Easier said than done 😊

[@TheSnero3]

the emac in the background always distracts me! How and where did you get that one?

[@lauriewired]

Most of the time schools are getting rid of them as e-waste, I managed to snag 2 for $50

[@Steve-jn8ir]

Wait, that isn’t a green screen?

[@rayquaza5908]

Thanks for sharing this valuable knowledge, now I am going to reverse engineer a Lathe Machine.

[@2sourcerer]

X86 assembly any recommended book?

[@amortalbeing]

this doesnt pay good and requires a maddening amount of dedication for your part. if you want money there are other avenues to pursue, if money is not important and youre a maniac then yeah its for you!

[@undeadpresident]

What would you recommend that pays better for the effort?

[@xorxpert]

I do Windows and iOS reverse engineering, basically software modifications. Really puts your skills to the test 😊

[@ChineseRatfaceCHANG]

Easy stuff, especially Windows.

[@JohannesDavidsen2024]

Manpage on mac was very hard to learn when i read it. But worth try, and learn some patience 😂

[@Richo5566]

How are your keygenning and patching skills Loz??

[@TorsionTestis]

Are you empress that cracks denuvo?

[@nevokrien95]

Why do 7 recommend x86 specifcly and not ARM for ppl who wana learn to reverse engineer android

[@leg1tvids]

What software are you running on those monitors?

[@Richo5566]

They look like milkdrop visualisations for Winamp.

[@ALEX54402]

❤ your videos

[@nesdi6653]

cool

[@coderhex1675]

she is the Fitgirl who cracks games

[@rabbitez]

I find RE content interesting but I don't think I'm smart enough to do it. I can barely program. 10 years as a sysadmin and I feel like I know nothing, especially when I watch videos like this. I have a lot of respect for security researchers, it seems like they have a thorough understanding of a large number of complex subjects. I envy you a bit when I listen to how clearly you explain things.

[@davidomar742]

you're insecurity is lame. go work at a starbucks maybe

[@dfinlen]

Does reading your pears work count as reverse engineering.

[@MorbidEel]

That is more like stealing the source code

[@amosdotl6892]

I bet you wrote the code for that light show going on behind you.

[@whocarescameraj1809]

I been way in to computers for a long time, I have never cared to graduate past script kiddy.. I always figured AI will make coding extremely easy, and it looks it will very soon.. I know many people that use chat gtp to write their scripts that they use at work. give a couple more years and AI will be more robust to do everything in this video. also ubuntu? lol

[@ghomarbaz_city]

😅😅just reading on the book

[@user-ky9qn4pg3w]

6502 gang

[@chetsavage9041]

I think I'm in love

[@juang_]

Serial Experiments Laurie.

[@kevinquintana3085]

Uuuh I found a mine of gold

[@Newtube_Channel]

Advice from Yt. Yeah right

[@j.lietka9406]

Here's a good question: can you take a good WiFi signal and turn it (back) into an Ethernet signal? As a kind of hobby I look for electronics in dumpsters and curbside stuff ❤

[@nine7295]

An AP in client mode can do that

[@VicariousAdventurer]

Reenigne for short

[@boris---]

Sheesh.. you already know what I wanna reverse engineer

[@GeorgiyChipunov]

Write a virus worm that sends emails with copies of it self

[@dcsteele]

Dat Mac OS8 tho

[@ehdyn]

Gulp*..

[@iro4201]

return 0;

[@bflmpsvz870]

Reverse engineering is like 3 Michelin star cooking. Almost everyone can do it...

[@GeorgiyChipunov]

Code a proxy that can be used on a platform with there’s a tunnel tech. The stackoverflow answers questions are banned on this

[@illegalsmirf]

hiya hun

[@bubisepulturegd4638]

Rust my sweet baby boy

[@viraldigitalmarketing8928]

love you dear madam

[@kokofrancia-sm1qj]

❤ilove princess!!

[@din_ayam]

Parking dulu, nanti I tengok kemudian yer sayang...

[@thommccarthy1139]

This is a 9 year plan for the average bloke lol

[@Controllerhead]

xor eax, eax

[@thenarrowtruth8480]

Could we get a repository going of these things? you did such a good job explaining and organizing your thoughts,methods,tools. A repository would give another avenue for us to engage with you in and follow along.

[@uzumakiuchiha7678]

noice 0>

[@3ff3xgaming68]

Looks like she didn't go for the cat ears. Actually, she went in the entirely opposite direction. Is LaurieWired becoming a normie? Please, no, God! Give us back Asuka! LOL. Great video!

[@kaihusravnajmiddinov5413]

If you keep the camera far, it reveals your body prettiness. I don't mind. Is it done intentionally? If you want people to focus on your speech, keep the camera closer to your face.

[@nine7295]

She's an actor

[@kaihusravnajmiddinov5413]

​@@nine7295Really? Not programmer ? Any links/proof ? Thanks

[@delicious_seabass]

A young woman talking about C and x86... I think I'm in love.

[@stavrosuberg898]

shes 16 you wiredo

[@nine7295]

She's an actor.

[@dante600]

@@nine7295why would you assume that?

[@mauricemakesmovies]

​@@nine7295 I doubt it. Considering her talk at DEFCON that would be quite the challenge.

[@Orincaby]

Buddycakes thinks he’s the Rizzler