Radare2
Reverse Engineering Toolkit
Radare2 is a free, open-source portable reverse engineering toolkit for developers, reverse engineers, and security researchers created and supported by NowSecure researchers.
Portable Reverse Engineering Toolkit for Mobile Apps
Radare2 is a reverse engineering toolkit used to disassemble, analyze, emulate and debug applications and perform forensics on file systems on any modern operating system.
The Support Behind Radare2
Radare2 was created by NowSecure Researcher Sergi “Pancake” Alvarez and is supported by a large global community of tool makers and security researchers. r2Con is the Radare2 community annual congress with hundreds of attendees. NowSecure researchers support the Radare2 community and its ongoing mission. Learn more about Pancake and the history of Radare2 here and follow Pancake and the RadareOrg on Twitter, watch YouTube and join the Radare2 community on Telegram or Discord. Access the Radare2 Github Repo or learn more fromthe Official Radare book. In 2017, Frida and Radare2 were integrated as R2Frida to get the best of both, learn more here.
Radare2 Powers Testing for Mobile Apps
Radare2 can be used to reverse iOS and Android mobile app binaries (no source code needed) to understand functionality, visualize data structures, patch programs to uncover new features or fix vulnerabilities, and more. With Radare2, you can assemble and disassemble a large list of CPUs, analyze and emulate code with ESIL, navigate ascii-art control flow graphs, patch binaries, modify code or data, and search for patterns, magic headers, and function signatures.
Using Radare2
Radare2 is incredibly flexible and can be used in many ways from command line or shell scripts by calling the individual tools. Users can also take advantage of the integrated package manager to easily install external plugins from different sources including the r2dec decompiler the frida integration, and more. One of the simplest and most effective ways to script radare2 is by utilizing r2pipe. R2pipe is a simple protocol that allows communication with r2 via commands, which enables the scripting of radare2 for virtually every language. Radare2 can also be used through Radius2, the best theorem solver tool available for mobile apps, and R2ghidra which integrates the native decompiler of Ghidra as a plugin, so it can be used without Java and in batch mode.
Radare2 Powers NowSecure Solutions
Radare2 and r2Frida are leveraged across the NowSecure Solution portfolio as part of our blackbox testing capabilities. Radare2 is used in NowSecure Platform for continuous security testing, NowSecure Workstation for pen tester toolkit, and NowSecure Pen Testing Services, available on demand or through Pen Testing as a Service (PTaaS), for deep expert mobile app analysis.
NowSecure and Radare2 for Mobile
NowSecure actively contributes to the Radare2 community and delivers a suite of testing tools that incorporate Radare2 and r2Frida to support any mobile app security testing program. Radare2 is an open source option for security professionals interested in testing mobile apps (and other kinds of app binaries) and NowSecure offers enterprise-ready options for more mature mobile appsec programs.
Radare2 for iOS and Android Mobile App Analysis
Radare2 provides static analysis and low level manipulations that are critical for reverse engineering mobile apps. With Radare2, you can study or modify pieces of software or data while monitoring the changes that occur before it is running. This enables the inspection of behavior that changes based on the system the mobile app is running on or the input provided. Using Radare2, researchers and security teams can gain an understanding of the inner machinery of their mobile apps, finding hidden backdoors, spotting vulnerabilities in code-paths that are rarely ever unlocked, and unlocking those code-paths. Radare2 also lets you modify the mobile app binary itself.
The Radare2 Interfaces
Security teams and researchers can use Radare2 through the blazing fast command-line interface. With r2pipe, you can automate interactions with the mobile app. Plus, Radare2 also comes with built-in debugging functionality that blows traditional debuggers like GDB (GNU Debugger) and LLDB (LLDB Debugger) out of the water. NowSecure Workstation also integrates r2 and the web user interface into one easy to use toolkit.
Radare2 on NowSecure Academy
NowSecure Academy is a completely free upskilling platform where development teams can learn the best practices for writing secure code from the start and security teams can learn how to efficiently and effectively test mobile apps for security issues. Radare2 is featured in a free course, Cracking Fun with Frida & Radare2, where you can learn more about using both Radare2 and Frida to inspect mobile apps.
More Radare2 Resources
Radare2 is open source, and available for installation from git. Alternatively, you can pick the latest release version from GitHub, with a new version available about every 6 weeks. The Official Radare2 Book is a great resource for learning more about the history of Radare2, getting started, basic commands, analysis, scripting, and much more!
Related NowSecure Resources
NowSecure Researcher Pancake on Hacking & Radare
See Radare2 In Action with NowSecure
Learn About Automated or Manual Testing