Publication Details

Design of an Automatically Generated Retargetable Decompiler

ĎURFINA Lukáš, KŘOUSTEK Jakub, ZEMEK Petr, KOLÁŘ Dušan, HRUŠKA Tomáš, MASAŘÍK Karel and MEDUNA Alexander. Design of an Automatically Generated Retargetable Decompiler. In: 2nd European Conference of COMPUTER SCIENCE (ECCS'11). Puerto De La Cruz, Tenerife: North Atlantic University Union, 2011, pp. 199-204. ISBN 978-1-61804-056-5.
Czech title
Návrh automaticky generovaného rekonfigurovatelného zpětného překladače
Type
conference paper
Language
english
Authors
Ďurfina Lukáš, Ing. (DIFS FIT BUT)
Křoustek Jakub, Ing. (DIFS FIT BUT)
Zemek Petr, Ing. (DIFS FIT BUT)
Kolář Dušan, doc. Dr. Ing. (DIFS FIT BUT)
Hruška Tomáš, prof. Ing., CSc. (DIFS FIT BUT)
Masařík Karel, Ing., Ph.D. (DIFS FIT BUT)
Meduna Alexander, prof. RNDr., CSc. (DIFS FIT BUT)
Keywords

decompilation, reverse engineering, malware, LLVM, Lissom, ISAC

Abstract

Accurate program decompilation is one of the most difficult tasks of reverse engineering. Currently, there exist several single-purpose decompilers targeted on a particular platform (e.g. Intel x86 architecture and Microsoft Windows OS) and on a particular language. These tools are always hand-written by the author from scratch. This paper presents a concept of a retargetable reverse compiler (i.e. a decompiler). This tool translates platform-specific binary applications into a high-level language (HLL) representation. A Python-like language was chosen as the target language, but the decompiler can be easily extended to other target languages. Our unique solution is automatically generated from the target platform description. It exploits the architecture description language ISAC for describing the target platform and the LLVM Compiler System as the core of the decompiler. The proof of our concept is presented on a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld game console. As can be seen from the experimental results, we are able to automatically generate a decompiler producing a highly readable HLL code for this platform while preserving the functional equivalency with the original application.

Published
2011
Pages
199-204
Proceedings
2nd European Conference of COMPUTER SCIENCE (ECCS'11)
Conference
2nd European Conference of Computer Science, Puerto De La Cruz, Tenerife, ES
ISBN
978-1-61804-056-5
Publisher
North Atlantic University Union
Place
Puerto De La Cruz, Tenerife, ES
BibTeX 
@INPROCEEDINGS{FITPUB9640,
   author = "Luk\'{a}\v{s} \v{D}urfina and Jakub K\v{r}oustek and Petr Zemek and Du\v{s}an Kol\'{a}\v{r} and Tom\'{a}\v{s} Hru\v{s}ka and Karel Masa\v{r}\'{i}k and Alexander Meduna",
   title = "Design of an Automatically Generated Retargetable Decompiler",
   pages = "199--204",
   booktitle = "2nd European Conference of COMPUTER SCIENCE (ECCS'11)",
   year = 2011,
   location = "Puerto De La Cruz, Tenerife, ES",
   publisher = "North Atlantic University Union",
   ISBN = "978-1-61804-056-5",
   language = "english",
   url = "https://www.fit.vut.cz/research/publication/9640"
}
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