The power of binary code analysis has always been underestimated as many still believe that binary analysis is inaccurate. In this What&Why article, we are going to explain what binary code and binary code analysis is and how important it is for various organizations to have binary code analysis as part of their cyber threat plan.
What Is Binary Code And Binary Code Analysis?
Binary code is a fundamental form of programming data: it underlies all computer languages, which means numeric values are stored using only the digits 0 and 1. Binary code is often associated with machine code in which binary sets can be combined to form raw code, which is interpreted by a computer or other piece of hardware.
Binary code analysis is threat assessment and vulnerability testing at the binary code level. Binary code is an in-depth analysis of the development of code base and components related with code quality that’s been implemented from the initial release of an IoT device. This analysis analyzes the raw binaries that compose a complete application.
How Does Binary Analysis Work?
To put it simple, imagine, you have heard about the book, the title sounds interesting but you are not sure that is something you would be interested in to read. What do you do first? Go to the table of contents to understand in general what this book is about! Same story with binary analysis tools which basically read a file’s “table of contents” to find out what’s inside.
Basic binary analysis tools may be not enough in some situations whilst advanced binary analysis tools can create a model of data flows, data types, and control paths. And this is without the need to reverse-engineer! Advanced binary analysis tools allow to get a deeper look into known software components and security flaw patterns. These findings can then be used to create security reports together with recommendation on how to address any problems in the code.
Why Is Binary Analysis Important?
The necessity of binary analysis is mainly justified by the frequent inavailability of an access to source code. One example would be organizations that buy firmware (that is in binary format) to integrate with the hardware in their products. Another example would be SaaS companies that use third-party libraries (that often do not include source code) to modify their proprietary code. And there is an infinite number of other cases that can highlight how important it is for users of binary files to understand what’s inside them.
Since a binary code analysis evaluates stripped binary code, binary code inspection can be conducted without vendor or coder cooperation and this fact makes it even more important for organizations to implement it.
How Can Binare Help?
Binare provides an automated software composition analysis (SCA) tool that empowers various companies to gain visibility into the composition of software, so that they can make better buying decisions and manage the ongoing security risk of numerious IoT devices, regardless of source code access. Binare’s automated IoT vulnerability management and firmware analysis platform identifies open source components in compiled software to provide an open source bill of materials and a list of any vulnerabilities and licenses related to those components.
Binare’s solution not only detects security issues in the IoT device your business is using, but also provides notifications for each vulnerability identified, giving users the information needed to properly understand, prioritize, and remediate the problem. Binare provides organizations not only with a static binary code analysis of an IoT device, but also continuous monitoring of an IoT device your business is using. Our static testing and continious monitoring security services are complemented by professional consulting services of the findings that can help improve the efficacy of such binary analysis.
Binare performs an automated analysis to identify vulnerable patterns in the code of your firmware. Binare’s automated engine runs a deep dive analysis of code components at development, testing, certification and deployment stages of the software development life cycle (SDLC): read our blog post “The Strong & Urgent Need To Perform Binary (IoT Firmware) Security Analysis” for more details about the positioning of binare’s product in the market.
Come and try our FREE Demo at https://demo.dashboard.binare.io/user/register. Let us identify the software components in your firmware and give you a detailed technical and engineering report on existing vulnerabilities that will help your business to anticipate emerging risks!
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