From 0×90 to 0x4c454554, a journey into exploitation

Posted: November 30, 2011 in IT

I put some time in and compiled a list in a course type layout to help people in process of learning exploit development. I hope my research will help others spend more time learning and less time searching.

First off I want to thank the corelan guys for the help they have provided me so far in the process.

layout: I will be posting in a hierarchical structure, each hierarchy structure should be fully understood before moving on to the next section. I will also post sets of Parallel learning topics that you can use to study in line with other topics to help prevent monotony. These Parallel areas will have a start and end mark which shows when they should be complete in perspective to the overall learning

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Other Posts like this one:
Because of quality of these posts I wanted to put them at the top. I could not figure out where to put them in the list because they cover so much.
past-present-future of windows exploitation
smashing the stack in 2010
IT-Sec-catalog
Part 1: Programming

Parallel learning #1:(complete this section before getting to the book “Hacking Art of exploitation”)

While going through the programming area I concentrate on core topics to help us later on with exploit writing. One area that is very good to pick up is some kind of scripting language. Listed below are some of the most popular scripting languages and ones I feel will prove to be the most useful.
Python: One of my favorite languages and growing in popularity python is a powerful language that is easy to use and well documented.
Learn Python the hard way

Wikibooks Python

http://docs.python.org/

onlinecomputerbooks.com

Grey hat python

Ruby: If you plan on later on working inside of metasploit this may be the language you want to start with. I highly suggest this for exploit developers to learn.
Wikibooks Ruby

LittleBookOfRuby

Ruby Programmers Guide

onlinecomputerbooks.com
Perl: An older language that still has a lot of use perl is one of the highest used scripting languages and you will see it used in many exploits. (I would suggest python over perl)

[book]

O’Reilly Learning Perl

onlinecomputerbooks.com

C and C++ programming:

It is very important to understand what you are exploiting so to get started let us figure out what we are exploiting. You do not need to go through all of these but when finished with this section you should have a good understanding of C and C++ programming.
Cprogramming.com

http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/C/CatalogC.htm

http://beej.us/guide/bgc/

onlinecomputerbooks.com

X86 Assembly:

Ok now to understand what the computer reads when we compile C and C++. I am going to mostly stick to the IA-32(X86) assembly language. Read the first link to understand why. It explains it very well.
Skullsecurity: Assembly

Windows Assembly Programming Tutorial

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Assembly

[book]

The Art of Assembly

Assembly primer for hackers

PC Assembly Language

Windows Programming:

This is to help understand what we are programming in and the structure of libraries in the OS. This area is very important far down the line
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Windows_Programming

http://www.relisoft.com/win32/index.htm

[book]

Windows Internals 5

[book]

Windows Internals 4

Disassembly:

Dissassembly is not as much programming as it is what the computer understands and the way it is interpreted from CPU and memory. This is where we start getting into the good stuff.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_disassembly

The Art of Disassembly

Part 2: Getting started

Now that we have a very good understanding of programming languages and what the machine is doing we can start working on task at hand, exploitation.

Here I will start a lot of the learning in very much a list format and adding in comments or Parallel learning areas when needed.
Smash the stack for fun and profit (Phrack 49)

C function call conventions and the stack

Anatomy of a program in memory

Function Calls, Part 1 (the Basics)

IA-32 Architecture

[videos]

Code Audit from cryptocity.net

(Parallel learning #1 finished:

You should now have finished on Parallel learning 1 and have a good understanding of one of the 3 languages)
[Book]

Hacking art of exploitation [Chapter 1&2]

Corelan T1

Corelan T2

Parallel learning #2:(complete this section before end of part 2)