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Faculty of Graduate Studies

Leijie Zhang

  • BSc (University of Victoria, 2023)

Notice of the Final Oral Examination for the Degree of Master of Science

Topic

BBAE: Bit-to-Byte Alignment with Entropy Analysis for Binary Protocol Field Identification

Department of Computer Science

Date & location

  • Thursday, November 27, 2025

  • 10:00 A.M.

  • Virtual Defence

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

  • Dr. Kui Wu, Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria (Supervisor)

  • Dr. Jianping Pan, Department of Computer Science, UVic (Member) 

External Examiner

  • Dr. Issa Traore, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Victoria 

Chair of Oral Examination

  • Dr. Tim Pelton, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, UVic

     

Abstract

Protocol Reverse Engineering (PRE) is crucial for analyzing undocumented or proprietary network protocols, particularly in the fields of network security and the Internet of Things (IoT). To conserve network bandwidth, many protocols adopt a compact binary format that maximizes bit utilization. However, this compactness introduces significant challenges for PRE, because (1) the number of potential field boundaries grows exponentially, and (2) byte-oriented PRE tools become ineffective for these scenarios. To address these challenges, we propose Bit-to-Byte Alignment with Entropy (BBAE) analysis, an innovative approach designed to enhance boundary detection in bit-oriented protocols. BBAE leverages entropy analysis and bit-congruence calculations across multiple window sizes to identify field boundaries more effectively. In addition, it enables systematic verification of detected boundaries. We conducted extensive evaluations of BBAE’s performance in identifying field boundaries of binary protocols and compared its effectiveness with existing tools, including byte-oriented semantic inference tools like BinaryInferno and bit-oriented tools such as Auto-ETLV. Our experimental results disclose that BBAE achieves outstanding performance in reverse engineering binary network protocols.

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