Publication Details
Design of a Retargetable Decompiler for a Static Platform-Independent Malware Analysis
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)
decompilation, reverse engineering, malware, LLVM, Lissom, ISAC
Together with the massive expansion of smartphones, tablets, and other smart devices, we can notice a growing number of malware threats targeting these platforms. Software security companies are not prepared for such diversity of target platforms and there are only few techniques for platform-independent malware analysis. This is a major security issue these days. In this paper, we propose a concept of a retargetable reverse compiler (i.e. a decompiler), which is in an early stage of development. The retargetable decompiler transforms platform-specific binary applications into a high-level language (HLL) representation, which can be further analyzed in a uniform way. This tool will help with a static platform-independent malware analysis. Our unique solution is based on an exploitation of two systems that were originally not intended for such an application - the architecture description language (ADL) ISAC for a platform description and the LLVM Compiler System as the core of the decompiler. In this study, we show that our tool can produce highly readable HLL code.
@ARTICLE{FITPUB9811,
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 a Retargetable Decompiler for a Static Platform-Independent Malware Analysis",
pages = "91--106",
journal = "International Journal of Security and Its Applications",
volume = 5,
number = 4,
year = 2011,
ISSN = "1738-9976",
language = "english",
url = "https://www.fit.vut.cz/research/publication/9811"
}