Reversing for dummies - x86 assembly and C code (Beginner/ADHD friendly)

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2021-07-25 20:30:02

Before I got into reverse engineering, executables always seemed like black magic to me. I always wondered how stuff worked under the hood, and how binary code is represented inside .exe files, and how hard it is to modify this ‘compiled code’ without access to the original source code.

But one of the main intimidating hurdles always seemed to be the assembly language, it’s the thing that scares most people away from trying to learn about this field.

That’s the main reason why I thought of writing this straight-to-the-point article that only contains the essential stuff that you encounter the most when reversing, albeit missing crucial details for the sake of brevity, and assumes the reader has a reflex of finding answers online, looking up definitions, and more importantly, coming up with examples/ideas/projects to practice on.

The goal is to hopefully guide an aspiring reverse engineer and arouse motivation towards learning more about this seemingly elusive passion.