Hex-Rays announces the release of Service Pack 3 (SP3) for IDA Pro 7.5. It is glad to announce the release of the Service Pack 3 today. The release introduces a handful of new and interesting features specific to the soon-to-be-released macOS 11 (Big Sur) and provides fixes for numerous errors in IDA. We improved: macOS11 kernel debugging with […]
Read MoreSometimes you know the structure size but not the actual layout yet. For example, when the size of memory being allocated for the structure is fixed: In such cases, you can quickly make a dummy structure and then modify it as you analyze code which works with it. There are several approaches which can be used […]
Read MoreWhen reverse engineering a big program, you often run into information stored in structures. The standard way of doing it involves using the Structures window and adding fields one by one, similar to the way you format data items in disassembly. But are there other options? Let’s look at some of them. Using already formatted data This […]
Read MoreArrays are used in IDA to represent a sequence of multiple items of the same type: basic types (byte, word, dword etc.) or complex ones (e.g. structures). Creating an array To create an array: Create the first item; Choose “Array…” from the context menu , or press *; Fill in at least the Array size field and click OK. Step 1 […]
Read MoreWhile working in IDA, sometimes you may need to reanalyze some parts of your database, for example: after changing a prototype of an external function (especially calling convention, number of purged bytes, or “Does not return” flag); after fixing up incorrectly detected ARM/Thumb or MIPS32/MIPS16 regions; after changing global processor options (e.g. setting $gp value in MIPS or […]
Read MoreWe’ve briefly covered batch mode last time but the basic functionality is not always enough so let’s discuss how to customize it. Basic usage To recap, batch mode can be invoked with this command line: ida -B -Lida.log <other switches> <filename> IDA will load the file, wait for the end of analysis, and write the full disassembly to […]
Read MoreThe Hex-Rays plugin Contest was an initiative by the experts behind IDA Pro, the state-of-the-art binary analysis tool. The contest, still taking place each year, encourages IDA users to create innovative and useful extensions for IDA and/or the Decompiler. 2019 marked its 10-year celebration. Hex-Rays deeply appreciates all participants for spending time and making this contest an incredible journey. […]
Read MoreMost IDA users probably run IDA as a stand-alone application and use the UI to configure various options. However, it is possible to pass command-line options to it to automate some parts of the process. The full set of options is quite long so we’ll cover the more common and useful ones. In the […]
Read MoreWith every IDA release, we publish detailed release notes describing various new features, improvements and bugfixes. While some of the additions are highlighted and therefore quite visible, others are not so obvious and may require careful reading. Having a closer look at these release notes, you will be surprised to see many small but […]
Read MoreIn IDA, highlight is the dynamic coloring of a word or number under the cursor as well as all matching substrings on the screen. In the default color scheme, a yellow background color is used for the highlight. Highlight is updated when you click on a non-whitespace location in the listing or move the cursor with […]
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