1) Curiosity is the main ingredient for anything you wish to learn 2) Discipline is required to start a topic and maintain a rehearsal routine 3) Motivation is required for persistence in further explorations during encountered challenges 4) Talent is an enabler to process more (complex) information in a shorter timeframe. How good you can become in a field is mostly determined by points 1,2,3 and the time you invest. Nobody can beat talent that works hard. The talents that work hard should be an inspiration to keep grinding to the best of your abilities.
Active reading too along with expanding your actual practice helps me too. I find when I don’t understand something like an exercise or malware reading background in formation in documentation or rfcs as opposed to a basic TH-cam video helps a whole lot more
The 2nd tip is something i realised about learning in general (not even reverse engineering) when studying at uni. In earlier schools there was abundance of examples, resources and tutorials, from different people and different perspectives, and the material was easier too, so there is less risk of accidentally missing the point and not understanding it later. At uni sometimes the only thing you have is slides from lecture and your poor notes 😂 after some time I realised it's impossible to prepare for a test like that by just reading it, because once you need to make a tiny step outside of how its presented on slides, you need to connect the dots in your head like some kind of infinity stones. So when I notice I'm starting to memorise the material rather than understand it (and I will forget it 100%), I try to come up with random questions on the topic to notice patterns. I also try to never progress with material if I don't inderstand something, I keep fighting with it until at least I feel like I understand it, unless I have no time to study and it's about the points on a test.
Yeh that's the way. In the end this is a faster process too even though it seems like it is slower, because you only have to do it once! If you are just reading/memorizing you will have to do it again each time you forget.
How to learn new things is not really rocket science. Read, practice, repeat within 24h and so on. There are some information that are fairly easily digestible without need to practice it and there are some that requires that you put it into practice. But the most important thing I've found so far is that you need to repeat what you read and do frequently. Can't just do it once and be done with it. Also, just stick to one thing at a time. Don't juggle several books and online courses at the same time.
Some reading can be good... now for things like bitwise operators... you just have to do them. That is the only way they will stick - by using them. But reading has merits too, it can get you excited about things, or give you a general idea
Hello there! Could you suggest some names of malware samples suitable for beginners to analyze, preferably ones that are not too difficult to understand? I started with Dridex, but it's becoming quite challenging to comprehend.
Lol that's like one of the most challenging samples to reverse. I would suggest maybe starting with something clean and unpacked like the Squirrelwaffel sample we looked at a while back, Unpacked sample: malshare.com/sample.php?action=detail&hash=6095f96dd5eca96a3fb9338eec4ab574921c0febb36f6a6db60aae1aeb9ffcab Lab-Notes github.com/OALabs/Lab-Notes/blob/main/SquirrelWaffle/SquirrelWaffle.ipynb
Thanks to Microsoft's absurd dedication to backwards compatibility most of the exercises should still work but you can also download an XP ISO and setup a virtual machine. Learning with XP is actually a nice experience because the OS is much simpler so it is easy to focus on the labs.
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1) Curiosity is the main ingredient for anything you wish to learn
2) Discipline is required to start a topic and maintain a rehearsal routine
3) Motivation is required for persistence in further explorations during encountered challenges
4) Talent is an enabler to process more (complex) information in a shorter timeframe.
How good you can become in a field is mostly determined by points 1,2,3 and the time you invest. Nobody can beat talent that works hard. The talents that work hard should be an inspiration to keep grinding to the best of your abilities.
Active reading too along with expanding your actual practice helps me too. I find when I don’t understand something like an exercise or malware reading background in formation in documentation or rfcs as opposed to a basic TH-cam video helps a whole lot more
The 2nd tip is something i realised about learning in general (not even reverse engineering) when studying at uni. In earlier schools there was abundance of examples, resources and tutorials, from different people and different perspectives, and the material was easier too, so there is less risk of accidentally missing the point and not understanding it later. At uni sometimes the only thing you have is slides from lecture and your poor notes 😂 after some time I realised it's impossible to prepare for a test like that by just reading it, because once you need to make a tiny step outside of how its presented on slides, you need to connect the dots in your head like some kind of infinity stones. So when I notice I'm starting to memorise the material rather than understand it (and I will forget it 100%), I try to come up with random questions on the topic to notice patterns. I also try to never progress with material if I don't inderstand something, I keep fighting with it until at least I feel like I understand it, unless I have no time to study and it's about the points on a test.
Yeh that's the way. In the end this is a faster process too even though it seems like it is slower, because you only have to do it once! If you are just reading/memorizing you will have to do it again each time you forget.
How to learn new things is not really rocket science. Read, practice, repeat within 24h and so on. There are some information that are fairly easily digestible without need to practice it and there are some that requires that you put it into practice. But the most important thing I've found so far is that you need to repeat what you read and do frequently. Can't just do it once and be done with it. Also, just stick to one thing at a time. Don't juggle several books and online courses at the same time.
Some reading can be good... now for things like bitwise operators... you just have to do them. That is the only way they will stick - by using them. But reading has merits too, it can get you excited about things, or give you a general idea
Winnipeg!? 😂 th-cam.com/video/xLlsjEP7L-k/w-d-xo.html
the idea is not to learn as much as possible, it is to do as much as possible.
Doing is learning!
Writing C and disassembling it is great advice, I worked through hackerrank challenges and ran it through godbolt explorer and it's helped massively
Yo shout out to godbolt for sure!
Thanks
Hi teacher. Is there a guide about editing a .pdb file? For example i would like to renew its function signatures to be readable in a newer product.
Hello there!
Could you suggest some names of malware samples suitable for beginners to analyze, preferably ones that are not too difficult to understand? I started with Dridex, but it's becoming quite challenging to comprehend.
Lol that's like one of the most challenging samples to reverse. I would suggest maybe starting with something clean and unpacked like the Squirrelwaffel sample we looked at a while back,
Unpacked sample:
malshare.com/sample.php?action=detail&hash=6095f96dd5eca96a3fb9338eec4ab574921c0febb36f6a6db60aae1aeb9ffcab
Lab-Notes
github.com/OALabs/Lab-Notes/blob/main/SquirrelWaffle/SquirrelWaffle.ipynb
@@OALABS 🥲 my soul cried a lot while analysing dridex,
Thanks, I will go with the sample you suggested
Dr. Fu calls for a windows xp guest. Will later versions of windows work?
Thanks to Microsoft's absurd dedication to backwards compatibility most of the exercises should still work but you can also download an XP ISO and setup a virtual machine. Learning with XP is actually a nice experience because the OS is much simpler so it is easy to focus on the labs.
@@OALABS do activation servers still work?
Is it possible to bypass memory protection in themida / VMP. I use frida for patching memory
THANKS IN ADVANCE
Yes