Ghidra- A reverse engineering software and a powerful cybersecurity tool released by NSA
In the wake of recent increase in phishing attacks and hacks reported by Microsoft’s Intelligence Security Report (ISR) 2018, National Security Agency’s advisor Rob Joyce announced a release of a reverse engineering software at the 2019 RSA conference in San Francisco.
Cybersecurity companies have been failing to grasp the extent to which these hackers are willing to go to because they do not play by any rules. For them there are many ways to infiltrate a system.
Introducing Ghidra in the Cyber World:
Keeping this in mind and the limitations cybersecurity companies face, the NSA’s new software Ghidra is an answer to many pressing problems faced in the online world. The NSA has been making use of it for years and has finally made it available for public use now.
What is meant by the reverse engineering?
Through reverse engineering, one can deduce a system’s making without knowing anything about its original production process. It’s like deconstructing a machine: it will tell what a program does in the most simplified way possible and how it does it.
The launching of Ghidra in the Cyber world has changed the way how we were looking at things before. Joyce emphasized that no matter what development we encounter in the future, Ghidra’s contribution in today’s cybersecurity world is of utmost importance. For him, it is a step towards progress.
It makes our online presence safe and more secure. It aims to make reverse engineering as convenient as possible and promote collaborative work. Yes, more than one person can work on the same reverse engineering project – this aspect was never given much importance before in the cyber world but Ghidra is changing how things work.
Many have compared it to IDA, a commercial tool for reverse engineering which costs a fortune for its users. But Ghidra is available for free with an open source that anyone can access. This has made cybersecurity and reverse engineering an easy concept that is not something way out of reach.
Many will argue that by making Ghidra available like this, NSA is taking a risk and hackers will surely try to trace it back to their system and manipulate its codes. NSA advisor, Joyce soothed these concerns by assuring people that there is no loophole in Ghidra and it’s as safe to use as it gets.