CS675 Software Reverse Engineering

Course Trivia

• Instructor: Spiros Mancoridis, Professor
• WWW: http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~spiros
• Office: University Crossings 139
• E-mail: spiros AT drexel DOT edu
• Phone: (215) 895-6824
• Instructor Office Hours (University Crossings 139): M 4:00PM-6:00PM
• Classroom: University Crossings 149
• Reading: Lecture notes and research papers provided by the instructor.
• Teams:
  • Team 1:
  • Team 2:
  • Team 3:
  • Team 4:

Introduction

This course is intended primarily for advanced graduate students with considerable programming experience. Typically the students taking this course major in Software Engineering and Computer Science. However, graduate students in other programs may take this course with the permission of the instructor.

Course Grading Scheme

• Each of the 8 labs is worth 10% of the final grade for a total of 80%.
• The final research paper is worth 20% of the final grade.

Every member of the team will receive the same grade. If a team is not satisfied with the contributions of a team member, the entire team may come to discuss the matter with the instructor during office hours. If the instructor agrees with the complaints of a team toward its member, that member will be given the opportunity to drop the course to avoid receiving a poor grade.

Grading Rules

• All grades are final.
• There will be no extra credit work.
• No extensions will be given to the labs. Each team will be assigned a grade by the instructor based on how much of the lab they have accomplished.
• Since labs are team activities, every student of a team will receive the same grade.

Course Schedule

• Week 1 (Jan. 4):
  • Course overview
  • Team formation
  • Lab 1
• Week 2 (Jan. 11):
  • Due: Lab 1 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 2
• Week 3 (Jan. 18): University Holiday No classes
• Week 4 (Jan. 25):
  • Lab 2 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 3
• Week 5 (Feb. 1):
  • Lab 3 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 4
• Week 6 (Feb. 8):
  • Lab 4 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 5
• Week 7 (Feb. 15):
  • Lab 5 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 6
• Week 8 (Feb. 22):
  • Lab 6 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 7
• Week 9 (Mar. 1):
  • Lab 7 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 8
• Week 10 (Mar. 8):
  • Lab 8 presentations and deliverables
  • Lab 9
• Week 11 (Mar. 15): Due: Research Paper

Tools

• Java Class Dependency Analyzer (CDA)
• Graphviz - Graph Visualization Software
• Bunch Software Clustering Tool (Java)
• ISF Module Interconnection Style Tool (Java)
• Example input files for Bunch and ISF
• BAT Source Code Analysis Tool
• junit 4.7 Testing Harness Tool
• emma Code Coverage Tool
• Selenium Web Application Testing Tool
• VMware for Windows
• VMware Fusion for Intel Mac
• REportal

Presentations

• Testing Tools (ppt)
• Software Clustering (ppt)
• The Bunch Clustering Tool (ppt)
• REportal: Reverse Engineering Portal (ppt)
• Interconnection Styles (ppt)
• Reversing Malware (ppt)
• Genetic Algorithms (ppt)
• Other Resources on Genetic Algorithms
• Overview of Binary Reversing Tools (ppt)
• Introduction to Binary Reversing (ppt)
• Source Code Analysis (ppt)

Research Papers

• Software Clustering using Bunch:

  • "Using Automatic Clustering to Produce High-Level System Organizations of Source Code",
    by S. Mancoridis, B.S.Mitchell, C.Rorres, Y.Chen, E.R.Gansner.
    In the IEEE Proceedings of the 1998 International Workshop on Program Understanding (IWPC'98), Ischia, Italy, June, 1998. pp. 45-52.
  • "Bunch: A Clustering Tool for the Recovery and Maintenance of Software System Structures", by S. Mancoridis, B.S.Mitchell, Y.Chen, E.R.Gansner. In the IEEE Proceedings of the 1999 International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'99), Oxford, UK, August, 1999, pp 50-59.
  • "Automatic Clustering of Software Systems using a Genetic Algorigthm",
    by D. Doval, S. Mancoridis, B.S.Mitchell.
    In the IEEE Proceedings of the 1999 International Conference on Software Tools and Engineering Practice (STEP'99), Pittsburgh, PA, August, 1999. pp. 73-81.

• Software Intercommention Rules using ISF:

  • "ISF: A Visual Formalism for Specifying Interconnection Styles for Software Design",
    by S. Mancoridis.
    In the International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, (IJSEKE), Vol. 8 No. 4, 1998, pp 517-540, World Scientific Publishing Company.
  • "On the Automatic Recovery of Style-Specific Structural Dependencies in Software Systems",
    by M. Traverso, S. Mancoridis.
    In the Journal of Automated Software Engineering, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Volume 9, Number 4, 2002. pp. 331-360.

• REportal Reverse Engineering Portal:

  • "A Reverse Engineering Portal" ,
    by C. Liao, S. Mancoridis, W. Mongan
    Drexel University Technical Report, 2003.
  • "REportal: A Web-based Portal Site for Reverse Engineering" ,
    by S. Mancoridis, T. S. Souder, Y-F. Chen, E. R. Gansner, J. L. Korn.
    In the IEEE Proceedings of the 2001 Working Conference in Reverse Engineering (WCRE'01), Stuttgart, Germany, October, 2001, pp 221-230.

• Software Security:

  • "Using Program Transformation to Secure Against Buffer Overflows",
    by C. Dahn, S. Mancoridis.
    In the IEEE Proceedings of the 2003 Working Conference in Reverse Engineering (WCRE'03), Victoria, BC, Canada, 2003
  • "Characterizing the Security Vulnerability Likelihood of Software Functions",
    by D. DaCosta, C. Dahn, S. Mancoridis, V. Prevelakis.
    In the IEEE Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM'03), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September, 2003.
  • "Code Based Software Security Assessments (CoBaSSA)",
    edited by L. Moonen, S. Mancoridis.
    In the Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Code Based Software Security Assessments, Pittsburgh, USA, November, 2005.,

• Binary Reversing:

  • "A Survey of Reverse Engineering Tools for the 32-bit Microsoft Windows Environment"
    by R. Canzanese Jr., Matthew Oyer, S. Mancoridis, M. Kam.
    

• Source Code Analysis:

  • "Chava: reverse Engineering and Tracking Java Applets" ,
    by J.L.Korn, Y-F. Chen, E. Koutsofios
    In the IEEE Proceedings of the 1999 Working Conference in Reverse Engineering (WCRE'99),
  • "A C++ Data Model Supporting Reachability Analysis and Dead Code Detection " ,
    by Y-F. Chen, E. R. Gansner, E. Koutsofios
    In the IEEE Transactions of Software Engineering Vol 24 No. 9, Sept. 1998.),

• Google Scholar
• IEEE Xplore Digital Library
• ACM Computing Surveys (Examples of Research Surveys)
• ACM Digital Library

Academic Honesty