Hackfest 2020

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All Software is Open Source: An Introduction to RE
11-21, 15:30–16:20 (Canada/Eastern), Hackfest - Track 1
Language: English

Commercial software is full of dark secrets - embedded keys and passwords, hidden backdoors, security vulnerabilities... But with companies guarding proprietary source code, is there any hope of discovering and rectifying them?

Enter Reverse Engineering. With its powerful tools and techniques, you can analyze any closed-source software, and have fun doing it!


Reverse engineering of a piece of software may seem like a daunting and mysterious task, but it does not have to be. When approached with the right attitude and the right tools it can be a lot of fun and a very intellectually-stimulating experience.

If you don't know much about reverse engineering but are curious about it, then this presentation is for you.

We will touch on:

  • What is it and why do it?
  • Legality of reverse engineering
  • Different type of technologies that you can reverse
  • What are the knowledge pre-requisites?
  • How to get started?
  • What tools to use?
  • How and where to practice?
  • ...and more!

Are you releasing a tool? – no

Dmitriy is a Senior Security Researcher at Vectra AI. He spent over 25 years of his life building software before realizing that breaking it is much more fun.

Dmitriy is passionate about all things security, with particular interest in reverse engineering, binary exploitation, secure software development, cloud and network threat detection, and CTF competitions.