Objective-C (Beta)¶

Recent version of Binary Ninja ship with an additional plugin for assisting with Objective-C analysis. It provides both a workflow and a plugin command for enhancing Objective-C binary analysis. A brief summary of the features offered is as follows:

Function Call Cleanup. When using the Objective-C workflow, calls to objc_msgSend can be replaced with direct calls to the relevant function's implementation.
Name and Type Recovery. Using runtime information embedded in the binary, Binary Ninja can automatically apply names and type information to Objective-C functions.
Structure Markup. Data variables are automatically created for Objective-C structures such as classes and method lists to enable easy navigation.
Data Renderers. Formatting of Objective-C types such as tagged and/or (image-)relative pointers is improved via custom data renderers.
CFString Handling. Data variables are automatically created for all CFString instances present in the binary.

Usage¶

If you have an Objective-C binary you are analyzing for the first time, or one you are returning to, you can run the "Objective-C — Analyze Structures" action from the command palette or plugins menu to perform Objective-C structure analysis. If you have already marked up Objective-C structures or modified function types yourself, be aware that they may be overwritten when this action is run.

Workflow¶

To utilize function call cleanup, the workflows feature must be enabled, and the Objective-C workflow must be chosen when loading a binary for analysis.

This will automatically apply structure analysis as the binary is analyzed and also translate objc_msgSend calls to direct method calls, where possible.