What you'll learn

Security analysts frequently encounter unknown executables during incident response but lack the reverse engineering skills to analyze compiled binaries, forcing reliance on automated sandboxes that provide incomplete behavioral data and miss sophisticated evasion techniques. In this course, Reverse Engineering with IDA Pro, you'll gain the ability to systematically dissect binaries and extract malicious capabilities through manual static and dynamic analysis. First, you'll master the IDA Pro 9.x advanced analysis workflow by configuring custom workspaces, applying FLIRT signatures to identify library code, reconstructing C++ class hierarchies from stripped binaries, and analyzing calling conventions to interpret decompiled functions. Next, you'll execute deep-dive static and dynamic analysis using IDA's Appcall feature to test individual functions, tracing data flow through cross-references and proximity browsers, debugging remote Android targets, and creating custom control flow visualizations to simplify complex program logic. Finally, you'll optimize decompilation with the Hex-Rays engine by renaming variables and applying type casts for readable pseudocode, implementing custom structures for proprietary data formats, and leveraging the Lumina server to identify known library functions from collective intelligence. When you're finished with this course, you'll have the skills and knowledge of IDA Pro reverse engineering needed to independently analyze malicious executables, extract behavioral indicators, and understand attacker techniques without relying solely on automated analysis tools.