A Survey on Tools for Binary Code Analysis

Different strategies for binary analysis are widely used in systems dealing with software maintenance and system security. Binary code is self-contained; though it is easy to execute, it is not easy to read and understand. Binary analysis tools are useful in software maintenance because the binary of software has all the information necessary to recover the source code. It is also incredibly important and sensitive in the domain of security. Malicious binary code can infect other applications, hide in their binary code, contaminate the whole system or travel through Internet and attack other systems. This makes it imperative for security personnel to scan and analyze binary codes with the aid of the binary code analysis tools. On the other hand, crackers can reverse engineer the binary code to assembly code in order to break the secrets embedded in the binary code, such as registration number, password or secret algorithms. This motivates researches to prevent malicious monitoring by binary code analysis tools. Evidently, binary analysis tools play an important doublesided role in security. This paper surveys binary code analysis from the most fundamental perspective views: the binary code formats, several of the most basic analysis tools, such as disassembler, debugger and the instrumentation tools based on them. The previous research on binary analysis are investigated and summarized and a new approach of analysis, disasembler-based binary interpreter, is proposed and discussed.