Python Bindiff

python-bindiff is a python module aiming to give a friendly interface to launch and manipulate bindiff between two binary iles.

How it works ?

The module relies on python-binexport to extract programs .BinExport and then directly interact with the binary differ (of zynamics) to perform the diff. The generated diff file is then correlated with the two binaries to be able to navigate the changes.

Installation

The python module requires Bindiff. Thus first refers to Zynamics installation directives.

Then the python module can be installed with:

pip install python-bindiff

The python module needs to execute the differ executable. As such it should be available:

• either in the path
• or via the BINDIFF_PATH environment variable

Usage as a python module

The simplest way to get the programs diffed is:

from bindiff import BinDiff

diff = BinDiff("sample1.BinExport", "sample2.BinExport", "diff.BinDiff")
print(diff.similarity, diff.confidence)
# do whatever you want with diff.primary, diff.secondary which are the
# two Program object

But programs can be instanciated separately:

from binexport import ProgramBinExport
from bindiff import BinDiff
p1 = ProgramBinExport("sample1.BinExport")
p2 = ProgramBinExport("sample2.BinExport")

diff = BinDiff(p1, p2, "diff.BinDiff")

Note that all the diff data are embedded inside program objects thus after instanciating BinDiff those p1 and p2 are modified.

From the API it is also possible to directly perform the BinExport extraction and the diffing:

from bindiff import BinDiff

diff = BinDiff.from_binary_files("sample1.exe", "sample2.exe", "out.BinDiff")

# or performing the diff on BinExport files
diff = BinDiff.from_binexport_files("sample1.BinExport", "sample2.BinExport", "out.BinDiff")

Usage as a command line

The bindiffer command line allows to generate a diff file from the two .BinExport files or directly from the binaries (thanks to python-binexport and idascript). The help message is the following:

Usage: bindiffer [OPTIONS] <primary file> <secondary file>

  bindiffer is a very simple utility to diff two binary files using BinDiff in command line. The two input files can be either binary files (in which case
  IDA is used) or directly .BinExport file (solely BinDiff is used).

Options:
  -i, --ida-path PATH      IDA Pro installation directory
  -b, --bindiff-path PATH  BinDiff differ directory
  -t, --type <type>        inputs files type ('bin', 'binexport') [default:'bin']
  -o, --output PATH        Output file matching
  -h, --help               Show this message and exit.

To work bindiff differ binary should be in the $PATH, given via the BINDIFF_PATH environment variable or with the -b command option. Similarly when diff binaries directly the ida64 binary should be available in the $PATH, given with the IDA_PATH environment variable or via the -i command option.