Heavy Wizardry 101

Forget waving wands - the real magic happens in assembly. Heavy Wizardry 101 takes you deep into shellcode, backdoors, worms and low-level hacking across x86_64, ARM, MIPS and RISC-V.

In hacker circles, 'heavy wizardry' means code that trades on intimate knowledge of a system - the kind that speaks its private dialects and bends its rules. Heavy Wizardry 101 teaches you to write it. You’ll build shellcode, backdoors, droppers, and worms from scratch, working at the instruction level where magic happens.

Every project is implemented for four architectures: x86_64, ARM, MIPS, and RISC-V. You’ll write the same program four times, seeing exactly what stays constant and what changes. Each chapter starts with architecture fundamentals, such as memory layout, calling conventions, and stack mechanics, then walks through complete working implementations on Linux in safe, contained environments.

Learn to:

• Write position-independent shellcode and programs that execute in constrained memory spaces
• Implement TCP reverse shells that bypass basic network restrictions
• Build executable droppers that embed and deploy payloads without detection
• Create self-replicating worms that propagate across networked systems
• Write basic port scanners to discover services in a network
• Port low-level code between architectures by understanding instruction-level differences

Whether you’re a penetration tester who wants to stop depending on Metasploit, a security researcher analysing malware, or a systems programmer who needs to understand how computers work, this book gives you the skills to build and reason about code at the lowest level.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Into the Machine: Awakening Code Spells
  • Chapter 1: Spell of the Binary Oracle: When Hardware Whispers in Opcodes
  • Chapter 2: Spell of Essence: Distilling C to Its Primordial ASM
  • Chapter 3: Spell of Rebirth: Transmuting Greetings into Shellcode
  • Chapter 4: Spell of Overflowing Frame: Mastering Stack Secrets
  • Chapter 5: Spell of the Undead: Writing a REPL to Animate a Botnet
• Part II: Onto the Network: Unveiling Mystic Gateways
  • Chapter 6: Veil of Shadows: Unlocking Hidden Backdoors
  • Chapter 7: Veil of Ash: The Dropper That Leaves No Flame Behind
• Part III: Through the Network: Casting Crawlers
  • Chapter 8: Casting the Twin Serpent: Summoning a Two-Headed Worm
  • Chapter 9: Casting the Lone Strand: Single-Stage Wormcraft
  • Chapter 10: Casting the Lost Hosts: Conjuring Network Scanners
• Appendixes: The Forge
• Appendix A: The Sorcerer's Forge: Preparing Your Workshop
• Appendix B: Secrets of the Forge: Arcane Tricks for Low-Level Tools
• Index

Author Bio

David Martínez Oliveira, aka Pico, has been writing code close to the metal since the 1990s, building software for computer vision, communications systems, laboratory equipment, and AR/VR/MR applications. A longtime GNU/Linux user, he explores security and low-level system internals both professionally and for fun.

Resources

• View the Copyright page
• View the detailed Table of Contents
• View the Index
• EAN: 9781718504424
• Pages: 304
• Dimensions: 19 x 3 x 24cm

Package Contents

• 1x Heavy Wizardry 101 book