Countless hours are spent researching vulnerabilities in proprietary and open source software for each bug found. Many indicators of potential vulnerabilities are visible both in the disassembly and debugging, if you know what to look for. How much can be automated? VulnCatcher illustrates the power of programmatic debugging using the VTRACE libraries for cross-platform debugging.
atlas a disciple of the illustrious Skodo, has a history in programming, systems support, telecom, security, and reverse engineering. His introduction to the hard-core hacking world was through dc13's CTF Qualifiers. Captain of two-time CTF-winner "1@stplace" and individual winner of CTF-2005, atlas has released hacking tools and toolkits such as disass, atlasutils, and is co-maintainer of the python library for x86 disassembly: libdisassemble.