rhabdomancer 0.9.1

Vulnerability research assistant that locates calls to potentially insecure API functions in a binary file.
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# rhabdomancer

[![](https://img.shields.io/github/stars/0xdea/rhabdomancer.svg?style=flat&color=yellow)](https://github.com/0xdea/rhabdomancer)
[![](https://img.shields.io/crates/v/rhabdomancer?style=flat&color=green)](https://crates.io/crates/rhabdomancer)
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> "The road to exploitable bugs is paved with unexploitable bugs."
>
> -- Mark Dowd

Rhabdomancer is a blazing fast IDA Pro headless plugin that locates calls to potentially insecure API functions in
a binary file. Auditors can backtrace from these candidate points to find pathways allowing access to untrusted input.

![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/0xdea/rhabdomancer/master/.img/screen01.png)

## Features

- Blazing fast, headless user experience courtesy of IDA Pro 9.x and Binarly's idalib Rust bindings.
- Support for C/C++ binary targets compiled for any architecture implemented by IDA Pro.
- Bad API function call locations are printed to stdout and marked in the IDB.
- Known bad API functions are grouped in tiers of badness to help prioritize the audit work.
  - [BAD 0] High priority - Functions that are generally considered insecure.
  - [BAD 1] Medium priority - Interesting functions that should be checked for insecure use cases.
  - [BAD 2] Low priority - Code paths involving these functions should be carefully checked.
- The list of known bad API functions can be easily customized by editing `conf/rhabdomancer.toml`.

## Blog posts

- <https://hex-rays.com/blog/streamlining-vulnerability-research-idalib-rust-bindings>
- <https://hnsecurity.it/blog/streamlining-vulnerability-research-with-ida-pro-and-rust>

## See also

- <https://github.com/0xdea/ghidra-scripts/blob/main/Rhabdomancer.java>
- <https://docs.hex-rays.com/release-notes/9_0#headless-processing-with-idalib>
- <https://github.com/idalib-rs/idalib>
- <https://books.google.it/books/about/The_Art_of_Software_Security_Assessment.html>

## Installing

The easiest way to get the latest release is via [crates.io](https://crates.io/crates/rhabdomancer):

1. Download, install, and configure IDA Pro (see <https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro>).
2. Install LLVM/Clang (see <https://rust-lang.github.io/rust-bindgen/requirements.html>).
3. On Linux/macOS, install as follows:
   ```sh
   export IDADIR=/path/to/ida # if not set, the build script will check common locations
   cargo install rhabdomancer
   ```
   On Windows, instead, use the following commands:
   ```powershell
   $env:LIBCLANG_PATH="\path\to\clang+llvm\bin"
   $env:PATH="\path\to\ida;$env:PATH"
   $env:IDADIR="\path\to\ida" # if not set, the build script will check common locations
   cargo install rhabdomancer
   ```

## Compiling

Alternatively, you can build from [source](https://github.com/0xdea/rhabdomancer):

1. Download, install, and configure IDA Pro (see <https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro>).
2. Install LLVM/Clang (see <https://rust-lang.github.io/rust-bindgen/requirements.html>).
3. On Linux/macOS, compile as follows:
   ```sh
   git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/0xdea/rhabdomancer
   cd rhabdomancer
   export IDADIR=/path/to/ida # if not set, the build script will check common locations
   cargo build --release
   ```
   On Windows, instead, use the following commands:
   ```powershell
   git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/0xdea/rhabdomancer
   cd rhabdomancer
   $env:LIBCLANG_PATH="\path\to\clang+llvm\bin"
   $env:PATH="\path\to\ida;$env:PATH"
   $env:IDADIR="\path\to\ida" # if not set, the build script will check common locations
   cargo build --release
   ```

## Usage

1. Make sure IDA Pro is properly configured with a valid license.
2. Customize the list of known bad API functions in `conf/rhabdomancer.toml` if needed. You can override the default
   configuration file location by setting the `RHABDOMANCER_CONFIG` environment variable.
3. Run as follows:
   ```sh
   rhabdomancer <binary_file>
   ```
   Any existing `.i64` IDB file will be updated; otherwise, a new IDB file will be created.
4. Open the resulting `.i64` IDB file with IDA Pro.
5. Select `View` > `Open subviews` > `Bookmarks`
6. Enjoy your results conveniently collected into an IDA Pro window.

> [!NOTE]
> Rhabdomancer also adds comments at marked call locations.

## Compatibility

Only the latest IDA Pro release is officially supported, but older versions may work as well. The following table
summarizes the latest compatible release for each IDA Pro version:

| IDA Pro version | Latest compatible release |
| --------------- | ------------------------- |
| v9.0.240925     | v0.2.4                    |
| v9.0.241217     | v0.3.5                    |
| v9.1.250226     | v0.6.2                    |
| v9.2.250908     | v0.7.6                    |
| v9.3.260213     | v0.8.1                    |
| v9.3.260327     | v0.9.0                    |
| v9.3.260421     | current release           |

> [!NOTE]
> Check the [idalib](https://github.com/idalib-rs/idalib) documentation for additional information.

## Changelog

- [CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/0xdea/rhabdomancer/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md)

## TODO

- Enrich the known bad API function list (see <https://github.com/0xdea/semgrep-rules>).
- Consider converting `traverse_xrefs` to an iterative walk to avoid potential stack overflows and infinite loops.
- Consider broadening the scope of normalization in `normalize_name` to account for more cases.
- Implement a basic ruleset in the style of [VulFi](https://github.com/Accenture/VulFi)
  and [VulnFanatic](https://github.com/Martyx00/VulnFanatic).