Does creating your own hacking tools exploit development and reverse engineering at a high level require high-level math

Question

I’m interested in getting deeper into ethical hacking, exploit development, and reverse engineering. However, I’ve heard that advanced hacking often requires a solid understanding of mathematics, especially when working on cryptography, shellcode development, and buffer overflows.

What specific areas of math are necessary for these tasks? Is it possible to develop effective hacking tools and perform reverse engineering without extensive knowledge of advanced math, or are there certain mathematical concepts that are essential to learn for these purposes?

Answer 1

It really depends on the specific areas you're focusing on. You don't need to be a math genius, but certain areas of Ethical Hacking and Security Research do require a solid understanding of mathematics, especially in cryptography and certain types of advanced exploit development.

1. Cryptography

Cryptography and related fields will require you to understand high-level math concepts like modular arithmetic, prime factorization, and discrete logarithms.

2. Exploit Development & Reverse Engineering

Exploit Development and Reverse Engineering require more logical thinking, basic arithmetic, and an understanding of memory structure rather than complex math.

3. Tool Development

Tool Development relies on discrete mathematics, which is essential for creating reliable and efficient hacking tools.

4. Specialized Attacks

Specialized Attacks like timing attacks may require knowledge of statistical analysis.

So while math plays a role, especially in cryptography and some advanced attack methods, much of hacking revolves around logical reasoning, understanding systems, and leveraging vulnerabilities.

You can still be effective in most areas of ethical hacking without needing advanced math unless you are delving into cryptography or advanced tool creation

Comments

Great point about cryptography! I'd add that fields like machine learning for anomaly detection in cybersecurity might also need some mathematical understanding, especially in linear algebra and probability.