From Heuristics to Transformers: A Comprehensive Survey of Type Inference from Stripped Binaries (opens in new tab)

The recovery of high-level type information from stripped binaries-executables devoid of symbol tables and debugging information-is a cornerstone of software reverse engineering, vulnerability analysis, and decompilation. This survey tracks the evolution of binary type inference from early rule-based heuristics and static analysis to modern deep learning architectures. We analyze the shift from "duck typing" and constraint-solving techniques (e....