All right, welcome back. We are going to mess around with strings today.
Now, according to the textbook, as always,
it is a utility and cybersecurity to analyze binary
and executable files for human readable text ie strings.
We can use these strings in a variety of ways. But realistically, most of the time
we're using it for malware analysis, right? We're looking for
data that allows us to better understand what
the program or what the application is doing
within the binary code, right?
So it really provides us with a glimpse
into the artifacts or the specific details associated
within the program that we're analyzing.
Uh Now we're not going to go too far into depth with this,
but I am going to show you a couple of
commands that you need to understand or you need to know
in order to better equip yourself to pass the cys A plus exam.
So to do that, I've went ahead and downloaded a program already.
We're going to go up to our terminal like this, I'm gonna blow this up so you can see it.
There we go, we should be able to see that and I need to get the right folder. Of course.
Right. So I'm gonna do CD downloads
and we used Minecraft for this specific lab. So I just downloaded Minecraft.
No, I didn't install it. I, I didn't install it on Linux.
I, I actually believe it or not. I haven't played Minecraft in like 20 years.
Well, I shouldn't say this feels like 20 years. Right.
Uh,
but
we're going to dissect it today. Ok.
So the first command we're going to do is just a simple strings
and we're going to equip it back into that Minecraft
just like that.
And it provides us some basic information.
Now, I know it doesn't look like you can read it because you kind of can't,
but it outputs all the strings within the executable, all the binary data.
Uh Now there's maybe too much here. And so what we want to do
is we want to get this data to a portion where we can read it.
Maybe for instance, we only need data
that is at least
let's say 10 characters in length. So I'm gonna do attack and 10
and then we'll do that minecraft dot D
right there. So this is going to look for all this data that already pulled up
and it has to be a minimum
of 10 characters in length because I did attack in with a TED.
Now you can see here that it's providing that and I also want
to point out I want to point out this right up here,
right?
See this
right here. All these blanks are these spaces, I should say
it's character length, right? So that means if somebody put a space in there,
then that counts as that 10 character length.
However, maybe this isn't enough data, maybe we're looking at this and we're going,
you know what?
That's just not enough. Let's shorten this down instead of 10, we can do five,
right?
We could also do eight, we could do seven, we could do six, we can do whatever we want.
We there's no requirement on there,
ok? But that's the first one I wanted to show you.
The next one I wanted to show you is a tat
A or switch A depending on how you read it.
And again,
where
do you
want
dot D
and this is going to look for the ask you two
strings within the file.
So anything that's ask you two and you can see not much changed
uh in, in our,
in random assortment of random numbers and characters throughout this.
But the ask you two, that is going to be A T
A.
The last one I want to show you is if we want to
uh
if we want to have a custom separator, right?
If, if we want to separate or to look within the program
for a specific separator within it, right?
Maybe, maybe we're keen to understand that I could do strings,
I can do A T
or switch s and then I can provide brackets like this
if I wanted to
and then Minecraft dot Dab, just like that.
And you can see here that it's providing me all that
juicy brackets or spaces or I should say the custom separators
associated with it. Now, it doesn't have to be brackets. Right.
I could do instead of brackets
I could do,
I'll
do that. Right.
And again, you can see here that it's providing me those custom separators,
right?
So those are the three that I really wanted to show you to really kind of look at it.
Now, cys A plus,
they're not going to ask you to go through and start typing in these commands, right?
But it would be a good idea to understand the basics of the three that
I showed you and to understand that what a string actually is trying to accomplish,
which if you don't remember,
strings are looking for data
within a binary or it's more appropriate, it's looking for bits,
bits within data, right?
Specifically within binary or within uh executable files, right?
And that's all we're trying to accomplish with that, right?
So that strings, uh we will see you next time. Thanks.