As a penetration tester, you have been provided a binary file from a client who suspects it might contain malicious code. Your task is to analyze the functionality of this binary without executing it directly on your system. Which technique would best serve this purpose?
Disassembling the binary to view the assembly code for further clues to its functionality.
Decompiling the binary to its source code to check for any suspicious functions.
Performing static analysis of the binary to understand its structure and behavior without executing it.
Executing the binary in a secure sandbox environment to observe its behavior.
Reverse engineering the binary through static analysis is the correct answer as it allows the examiner to inspect the code without executing it, which prevents potential harm to the examiner's system or network. Simply executing the binary would be unsafe as it might execute malicious functions. Disassembling and using a sandbox, though both useful techniques, are incorrect because disassembly is part of reverse engineering and using a sandbox still involves execution of the binary; hence it does not match the constraint of analyzing without execution as stated in the question. Decompilation alone is insufficient without the broader context and processes involved in reverse engineering.
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