OllyDbg - Running DLLs

So this isn't something new really. There's plenty of articles that talk about running DLLs. You usually either write a small EXE that uses LoadLibrary to load the DLL or use rundll32.exe with the arguments set to calling DllMain(). That'll work.

But that'll work only if all the functions are eventually called. I mean... if a DLL has 4 functions A, B, C and D. And the program flow is something like:

DLLMain(){
   a()
}

a() {
  b()
  c()
}

c(){
  d()
}

... it'll work and you'll end up being able to reverse the entire DLL.

But if you have a 5th function e() that isn't directly called... and is called only on some specific case... you won't directly ever end up there.

A quick tip on how to analyze this in Olly is to identify the function() to reverse using IDA or any other disassembler and go to that address. Now right click on that address and click "Set new origin here". This will allow you to run that function :)

Of course...this will work out of the box only if the function takes no arguments at all. If it does you will have to set up the registers EAX, EBX, ECX and anything else...with the correct arguments. This you can do..by finding out where it was called from... or by studying how the arguments are processed inside the function by running it and seeing why it crashes.

For example: A function may need 2 arguments and takes these from EBX and ECX. So you might fill in EBX="A" and ECX="d" and try and run the function. But you might find out later that there was code which was dividing EBX and ECX... (EBX/ECX). This means that they both had to be numbers... integers maybe. So you fill up EBX=4 and ECX=2 and see what happens. It might crash again but for some different reason...and you then go back .. and so on :)

Nothing new but a quick little thing that I learnt last week or so...while working on that Fireeye challenge.