Homework 2: Binary Bomb

Description

For this assignment you will be completing each stage of the challenge binary provided. There are 10 stages with different challenges of varying degrees of difficulty. Each stage is worth 2 points and you must include a write up describing how you solved each challenge. It doesn’t need to be very lengthy, but you MUST INCLUDE an analysis of the assembly instructions that were critical to solving the challenge. You will not receive full points if you only include the solution. You will also not receive full points if you only show the binaryninja decompiler. It is a great tool to help with your analysis but inspection of the assembly code is required for full points.

Homework Update (27 Sep 2025)

After talking with some students about the some of the challenges, we realized there was a bug in the way we built the program. When the original binary is analyzed by binaryninja, one of the functions gets combined into the previous one. This can be very difficult to find unless you know what you’re looking for. This does make it unnecessarily difficult to solve one of the challenges, so there’s two options to fix it.

1. Download the updated version of the bomb:

   Binary Bomb (Updated)

2. Manually create the function yourself:

   • First you need to find where it looks like two functions are smashed together. The endbr64 instruction is commonly seen at the beginning of functions for security reasons, so this is a good indicator that part of the static analysis failed.
   • You can click on the endbr64 instruction and press the P keyboard shortcut, or right click and select Make Function At This Address > Default to create a new function.
   • Afterward, you should see two separate function blocks.

Rubric (20 pts)

Submission