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Software reverse engineering tool From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Interactive Disassembler (IDA) is a disassembler for computer software which generates assembly language source code from machine-executable code. It supports a variety of executable formats for different processors and operating systems. It can also be used as a debugger for Windows PE, Mac OS X Mach-O, and Linux ELF executables. A decompiler plug-in, which generates a high level, C source code-like representation of the analysed program, is available at extra cost.[4][5]
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Portrait of Françoise d'Aubigné, whose image is used as the IDA logo | |
| Original author(s) | Ilfak Guilfanov |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Hex-Rays |
| Initial release | May 21, 1991[1] |
| Stable release | 8.4 SP2[2]
/ May 27, 2024 |
| Written in | C++[3] |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux |
| Available in | English, Russian |
| Type | Disassembler, Decompiler |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | hex-rays |
IDA is used widely in software reverse engineering, including for malware analysis[6][7] and software vulnerability research.[8] IDA has been referred to as the "de-facto industry standard disassembler".[9][10][11][12]
Ilfak Guilfanov began working on IDA in 1990,[13][14][15][16] and initially distributed it as a shareware application. In 1996, the Belgian company DataRescue took over the development of IDA and began to sell it as a commercial product, under the name IDA Pro.[17][18]
Initial versions of IDA did not have a graphical user interface (GUI), and ran as an extended DOS, OS/2, or Windows console application.[19] In 1999, DataRescue released the first version of IDA Pro with a GUI, IDA Pro 4.0.[20]
In 2005, Guilfanov founded Hex-Rays to pursue the development of the Hex-Rays Decompiler IDA extension.[21][22] In January 2008, Hex-Rays assumed the development and support of DataRescue's IDA Pro.[23][24]
In 2022, Hex-Rays was acquired by Smartfin, a European venture capital and private equity investor.[25][26]
IDA disassembles a compiled program back into an assembly language representation. In addition to performing basic disassembly, IDA also automatically annotates disassembled programs with information about:[27]
However, the nature of disassembly precludes total accuracy, and a great deal of human intervention is necessarily required; IDA has interactive functionality to aid in improving the disassembly. A typical IDA user will begin with an automatically generated disassembly listing and then convert sections from code to data and vice versa, rename, annotate, and otherwise add information to the listing, until its functionality becomes clear.
"IDC scripts" make it possible to extend the operation of the disassembler. Some helpful scripts are provided, which can serve as the basis for user written scripts. Most frequently scripts are used for extra modification of the generated code. For example, external symbol tables can be loaded thereby using the function names of the original source code.
Users have created plugins that allow other common scripting languages to be used instead of, or in addition to, IDC. IdaRUB[28] supports Ruby and IDAPython[29] adds support for Python. As of version 5.4, IDAPython (dependent on Python 2.5) comes preinstalled with IDA Pro.
IDA Pro supports a number of debuggers,[30] including:
The latest full version of IDA Pro is commercial (version 8.4 as of June 2024), while a less capable version, named IDA Free, is available for download free of cost.[31]
IDA Pro's logo is a cropped image of Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon. The logo image is similar to a miniature painting of Françoise d'Aubigné attested to a painter in the circle of Pierre Mignard.[33]
The original greyscale version of the logo was introduced in September 1999, with the release of IDA 4.0.[15] Ilfak Guilfanov has stated that the logo is not a depiction of Saint Ida of Louvain.[34]
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