mandiant / mandiant/capa

triage Binary Ninja backend performance

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#1,414 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
binary-ninja performance
Dominant language
Python
Stars
6.2k
Forks
726
Avg merge
11d 11h
Merged PRs (30d)
7

Description

as first described in this thread: https://github.com/mandiant/capa/pull/1343#issuecomment-1481713573
the Binary Ninja backend runs approximately 2x slower than the vivisect backend, at least during testing in CI/CD. we should investigate why this is the case (I'd expect BN to probably be faster, even if it's doing much more work, since it's implemented in C++/native code).

There's a theory that maybe PDB download and handling is holding up analysis. So, consider this angle. In any case, the first step should be profiling and gathering data that we can use to pinpoint how CPU/memory is being spent.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with the linked pull request comment and compare the Binary Ninja and vivisect backends during CI/CD testing. Profile CPU and memory use, including the possible PDB download and handling path, and document data that identifies the source of the slowdown.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
performance, reverse-engineering
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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