https://thet0aster.github.io/reverse engineering, malware analysis, gamedev 2025-12-29T22:12:09-05:00 Saikishore Gowrishankar https://thet0aster.github.io/ Jekyll © 2025 Saikishore Gowrishankar /assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png 2025-12-29T22:08:00-05:00 2025-12-29T22:08:00-05:00 https://thet0aster.github.io/posts/omscs-review-3-cs6035-introduction-to-information-security/ Saikishore Gowrishankar

In the Summer 2025 semester of my OMSCS journey, I decided to take IIS. This is a survey class covering various topics in computer security Grading The grading scale for the class was as follows: Assignment Release Date Due Date Weight Man in the Middle Jan 9 Jan 18 10% Machine Learning Jan 17 ...

2025-12-27T22:29:00-05:00 2025-12-27T22:29:00-05:00 https://thet0aster.github.io/posts/cache-hierarchies-and-coherence-a-security-researcher-s-perspective/ Saikishore Gowrishankar

This post is an advanced overview of how CPU caches and the memory hierarchy works and how they are relevant from a security research perspective. We will cover multiple topics from the ground up, including cache organization, associativity, coherence protocols, virtual memory translations, as well as how these things can be a potential attack surface for side-channel attacks and covert channel...

2025-12-13T21:37:00-05:00 2025-12-13T21:37:00-05:00 https://thet0aster.github.io/posts/omscs-review-2-cs6290-high-performance-computer-architecture/ Saikishore Gowrishankar

In the Fall 2025 semester of my OMSCS journey, I decided to take High Performance Computer Architecture, where we delved into a variety of topics relating to computer organization and architecture Motivations In the prior Summer 2025 semester, I finished taking IIS (Introduction to Information Security), which was an entirely project-based course and I learned a lot of practical information o...

2025-07-19T21:32:00-04:00 2025-07-20T02:09:21-04:00 https://thet0aster.github.io/posts/understanding-the-elf-binary-format-part-2/ Saikishore Gowrishankar

This is Part 2 of my two-part series on the ELF binary format. If you haven’t read Part 1, you can read it here. In this writeup, we will explore how an ELF file is loaded into memory and executed. What steps does the kernel take in order to create the process, and how does the dynamic linker perform relocations at runtime? At this point, you understand how an ELF binary is structured, includi...

2025-07-19T10:55:00-04:00 2025-12-29T20:49:35-05:00 https://thet0aster.github.io/posts/understanding-the-elf-binary-format/ Saikishore Gowrishankar

Ever wonder what exactly happens when you run an executable on Linux? In this post, I’ll be breaking down the details behind ELF, or the Executable and Linkable Format. ELF is a cross-platform binary file format used on Unix-based operating systems for executables, object files, dynamic libraries, and core dumps. Today, ELF is used in a variety of different platforms running Linux, from deskto...