Scripting allows you to automate tasks in IDA which can be repetitive or take a long time to do manually. We previously covered how to run them in batch (headless) mode, but how can they be used interactively? Script snippets File > Script Command… (Shift+F2) Although this dialog is mainly intended for quick prototyping and database-specific […]
Read MoreToday, Hex-Rays team is thrilled to announce the release of IDA version 7.6! Our top-notch binary analysis tool IDA Pro’s latest version delivers new features and various enhancements. With significantly-improved performance, version 7.6 is expected to certainly accelerate its users’ reverse-engineering experience. Here are the highlight features and changes introduced in IDA 7.6: Apple Silicon’s full support: The […]
Read MoreYou may have come across the menu items View > Hide, Unhide but possibly never used them. These commands allow you to hide, or collapse and unhide/uncollapse parts of IDA’s output. They can be used in the following situations: Hiding instructions or data items To make your database more compact and reduce clutter, you can opt to hide […]
Read MoreIDA has three shortcuts as an alternative to some menus which could be cumbersome to navigate. Quick view Probably the most commonly used, it is triggered by the shortcut Ctrl+1 and shows the items under the View > Open subviews menu. It can be especially useful for opening views which have no dedicated shortcut such as Notepad (although […]
Read MoreFor better readability, IDA highlights various parts of the disassembly listing using different colors; however these are not set in stone and you can modify most of them to suit your taste or situation. Let’s have a look at the different options available for changing colors in IDA. Themes In case you are not aware, IDA supports […]
Read MoreThe Functions list is probably one of the most familiar features of IDA’s default desktop layout. But even if you use it every day, there are things you may not be aware of. Modal version Available via Jump > Jump to function… menu, or the Ctrl–P shortcut, the modal dialog lets you see the full width of the […]
Read MoreAs explained in Simplex method in IDA Pro, having correct stack change information is essential for correct analysis. This is especially important for good and correct decompilation. While IDA tries its best to give good and correct results (and we’ve made even more improvements since 2006), sometimes it can still fail (often due to wrong […]
Read MoreContinuing from last week, let’s discuss other disassembly options you may want to change. Here’s the options page again: Disassembly line parts This group is for options which control the content of the main line itself. Here is an example of a line with all options enabled: The marked up parts are: The line prefix (address of […]
Read MoreBy default IDA’s disassembly listing shows the most essential information: disassembled instructions with operands, comments, labels. However, the layout of this information can be tuned, as well as additional information added. This can be done via the Disassembly Options tab available via Options > General… menu (or Alt–O, G). Text and Graph views options If you open […]
Read MoreWhile register highlighting can help tracking how a register is used in the code, sometimes it’s not quite sufficient, especially if multiple registers are used by a complicated piece of code. In such situation you can try register renaming. To rename a register: place the cursor on it and press N or Enter, or double-click it A dialog […]
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