James Alastair McLaughlin

15 papers Journal 13Unranked 2
YearRankTypeTitle / Venue / Authors
2025 J jnl
CoRR
James Alastair McLaughlin, Josh Lagrimas, Haider Iqbal, Helen E. Parkinson, Henriette Harmse
2025 conf
FOIS (Satellite Events)
Henriette Harmse, Haider Iqbal, Helen E. Parkinson, James Alastair McLaughlin
2025 J jnl
CoRR
Henriette Harmse, Haider Iqbal, Helen E. Parkinson, James Alastair McLaughlin
2024 conf
ICBO
Haider Iqbal, James Alastair McLaughlin, Helen E. Parkinson, Henriette Harmse
2023 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Lukas Buecherl, Thomas Mitchell, James Scott-Brown, Prashant Vaidyanathan, Gonzalo Vidal, Hasan Baig, Bryan Bartley, Jacob Beal, Matthew Crowther, Pedro Fontanarrosa, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Vishwesh Kulkarni, James Alastair McLaughlin, Göksel Misirli, Ernst Oberortner, Anil Wipat, Chris J. Myers
2021 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Hasan Baig, Pedro Fontanarosa, Vishwesh Kulkarni, James Alastair McLaughlin, Prashant Vaidyanathan, Bryan Bartley, Shyam Bhakta, Swapnil Bhatia, Mike Bissell, Kevin Clancy, Robert Sidney Cox III, Ángel Goñi-Moreno, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Jihwan Lee, Augustin Luna, Curtis Madsen, Goksel Misirli, Tramy Nguyen, Nicolas Le Novère, Zachary Palchick, Matthew R. Pocock, Nicholas Roehner, Herbert M. Sauro, James Scott-Brown, John T. Sexton, Guy-Bart Stan, Jeffrey J. Tabor, Logan Terry, Marta Vazquez Vilar, Christopher A. Voigt, Anil Wipat, David Zong, Zach Zundel, Jacob Beal, Chris J. Myers
2021 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Hasan Baig, Pedro Fontanarosa, James Alastair McLaughlin, James Scott-Brown, Prashant Vaidyanathan, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Goksel Misirli, Jacob Beal, Chris J. Myers
2020 J jnl
Nucleic Acids Res.
Esteban Martínez-García, Ángel Goñi-Moreno, Bryan Bartley, James Alastair McLaughlin, Lucas Sánchez-Sampedro, Héctor Pascual del Pozo, Clara Prieto Hernández, Ada Serena Marletta, Davide De Lucrezia, Guzmán Sánchez-Fernández, Sofía Fraile, Víctor de Lorenzo
2020 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Hasan Baig, Pedro Fontanarrosa, Vishwesh Kulkarni, James Alastair McLaughlin, Prashant Vaidyanathan, Bryan Bartley, Jacob Beal, Matthew Crowther, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Goksel Misirli, James Scott-Brown, Ernst Oberortner, Anil Wipat, Chris J. Myers
2020 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Hasan Baig, Pedro Fontanarrosa, Vishwesh Kulkarni, James Alastair McLaughlin, Prashant Vaidyanathan, Bryan Bartley, Swapnil Bhatia, Shyam Bhakta, Michael Bissell, Kevin Clancy, Robert Sidney Cox III, Ángel Goñi-Moreno, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Augustin Luna, Curtis Madsen, Goksel Misirli, Tramy Nguyen, Nicolas Le Novère, Zachary Palchick, Matthew R. Pocock, Nicholas Roehner, Herbert M. Sauro, James Scott-Brown, John T. Sexton, Guy-Bart Stan, Jeffrey J. Tabor, Marta Vazquez Vilar, Christopher A. Voigt, Anil Wipat, David Zong, Zach Zundel, Jacob Beal, Chris J. Myers
2019 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Curtis Madsen, Ángel Goñi-Moreno, Umesh P, Zachary Palchick, Nicholas Roehner, Christian Atallah, Bryan Bartley, Kiri Choi, Robert Sidney Cox III, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Chris Macklin, James Alastair McLaughlin, Xianwei Meng, Tramy Nguyen, Matthew R. Pocock, Meher Samineni, James Scott-Brown, Ysis Tarter, Michael Zhang, Zhen Zhang, Zach Zundel, Jacob Beal, Michael Bissell, Kevin Clancy, John H. Gennari, Goksel Misirli, Chris J. Myers, Ernst Oberortner, Herbert M. Sauro, Anil Wipat
2019 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Curtis Madsen, Ángel Goñi-Moreno, Zachary Palchick, Umesh P, Nicholas Roehner, Bryan Bartley, Swapnil Bhatia, Shyam Bhakta, Mike Bissell, Kevin Clancy, Robert Sidney Cox III, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Augustin Luna, James Alastair McLaughlin, Tramy Nguyen, Nicolas Le Novère, Matthew R. Pocock, Herbert M. Sauro, James Scott-Brown, John T. Sexton, Guy-Bart Stan, Jeffrey J. Tabor, Christopher A. Voigt, Zach Zundel, Chris J. Myers, Jacob Beal, Anil Wipat
2018 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Robert Sidney Cox III, Curtis Madsen, James Alastair McLaughlin, Tramy Nguyen, Nicholas Roehner, Bryan Bartley, Jacob Beal, Michael Bissell, Kiri Choi, Kevin Clancy, Raik Grünberg, Chris Macklin, Goksel Misirli, Ernst Oberortner, Matthew R. Pocock, Meher Samineni, Michael Zhang, Zhen Zhang, Zach Zundel, John H. Gennari, Chris J. Myers, Herbert M. Sauro, Anil Wipat
2018 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Robert Sidney Cox III, Curtis Madsen, James Alastair McLaughlin, Tramy Nguyen, Nicholas Roehner, Bryan Bartley, Swapnil Bhatia, Mike Bissell, Kevin Clancy, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Raik Grünberg, Augustin Luna, Nicolas Le Novère, Matthew R. Pocock, Herbert M. Sauro, John T. Sexton, Guy-Bart Stan, Jeffrey J. Tabor, Christopher A. Voigt, Zach Zundel, Chris J. Myers, Jacob Beal, Anil Wipat
2016 J jnl
J. Integr. Bioinform.
Jacob Beal, Robert Sidney Cox III, Raik Grünberg, James Alastair McLaughlin, Tramy Nguyen, Bryan Bartley, Michael Bissell, Kiri Choi, Kevin Clancy, Chris Macklin, Curtis Madsen, Goksel Misirli, Ernst Oberortner, Matthew R. Pocock, Nicholas Roehner, Meher Samineni, Michael Zhang, Zhen Zhang, Zach Zundel, John H. Gennari, Chris J. Myers, Herbert M. Sauro, Anil Wipat
redb/extractors/js_extractors/js_deobfuscator.py
← Index redb/extractors/js_extractors/js_deobfuscator.py python
"""Subprocess-driven JavaScript deobfuscator with jsbeautifier fallback.

Owns the heavy lifting that was previously embedded inside
`JSDeobfuscationExtractor` (`_run_deobfuscator` + `_try_jsbeautifier`). Exposed
as a single module-level entry point `deobfuscate(source, log)` so it can be
called from `JSContext.deobfuscated` (cached per sample) without dragging
extractor state through the call.

Configuration (env vars):
    JS_DEOBFUSCATOR_PATH    Path or name of the external tool (default: webcrack).
    JS_DEOBFUSCATE_TIMEOUT  Seconds before the external tool is killed
                            (process-group SIGTERM, then SIGKILL). Default: 60.

If the external tool produces non-empty output and exits 0, that wins. Otherwise
the source is run through jsbeautifier (which only normalises formatting, but
already exposes strings hidden by minification). If neither path produces
output, returns (None, None).

`FileNotFoundError` for the external tool is treated as routine — the analysis
server is either provisioned with the tool or it isn't — and demoted to a
debug-level log.
"""

import os
import signal
import subprocess
import tempfile
from typing import Optional, Tuple

DEFAULT_DEOBFUSCATOR = "webcrack"
DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_SECS = 60


def _run_external(
    source: str, deobfuscator_path: str, timeout: int, log
) -> Tuple[Optional[str], int]:
    """Run the configured external deobfuscator over `source` and capture stdout.

    Returns (text, returncode). `text` is `None` and `returncode` is `-1` when
    the binary is missing, the run timed out, or any other unexpected failure
    occurred. Missing-binary is logged at debug; timeouts and unexpected errors
    surface at warning/error.
    """
    try:
        with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(
            suffix=".js", mode="w", delete=False, encoding="utf-8"
        ) as tmp:
            tmp.write(source)
            tmp_path = tmp.name

        try:
            process = subprocess.Popen(
                [deobfuscator_path, tmp_path],
                stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
                preexec_fn=os.setsid,
            )

            try:
                stdout, _ = process.communicate(timeout=timeout)
                return stdout.decode("utf-8", errors="replace"), process.returncode
            except subprocess.TimeoutExpired:
                # Kill the entire process group so spawned helpers (e.g. node
                # subprocesses webcrack itself launches) get cleaned up too.
                try:
                    os.killpg(os.getpgid(process.pid), signal.SIGTERM)
                    process.wait(timeout=5)
                except Exception:
                    try:
                        os.killpg(os.getpgid(process.pid), signal.SIGKILL)
                    except Exception:
                        pass
                log.warning(f"Deobfuscation timed out after {timeout}s")
                return None, -1
        finally:
            try:
                os.unlink(tmp_path)
            except Exception:
                pass
    except FileNotFoundError:
        log.debug(f"Deobfuscator binary not found at {deobfuscator_path}")
        return None, -1
    except Exception as e:
        log.error(f"Error running deobfuscator: {e}")
        return None, -1


def _try_jsbeautifier(source: str, log) -> Tuple[Optional[str], Optional[str]]:
    """Fallback path: format the source with jsbeautifier. Returns
    `(text, "jsbeautifier")` or `(None, None)` if jsbeautifier isn't installed
    or the call raised."""
    try:
        import jsbeautifier
        opts = jsbeautifier.default_options()
        opts.indent_size = 2
        return jsbeautifier.beautify(source, opts), "jsbeautifier"
    except ImportError:
        log.debug("jsbeautifier not available")
        return None, None
    except Exception as e:
        log.warning(f"jsbeautifier failed: {e}")
        return None, None


def deobfuscate(source: str, log) -> Tuple[Optional[str], Optional[str]]:
    """Run the configured external deobfuscator, falling back to jsbeautifier.

    Returns `(text, normalizer_used)` on success, or `(None, None)` when neither
    path produced non-empty output. `normalizer_used` is the basename of the
    external tool (e.g. `"webcrack"`) or the literal `"jsbeautifier"`.
    """
    if not source:
        return None, None

    deobfuscator_path = os.getenv("JS_DEOBFUSCATOR_PATH", DEFAULT_DEOBFUSCATOR)
    timeout = int(os.getenv("JS_DEOBFUSCATE_TIMEOUT", str(DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_SECS)))

    text, returncode = _run_external(source, deobfuscator_path, timeout, log)
    if text and returncode == 0 and text.strip():
        return text, os.path.basename(deobfuscator_path)

    return _try_jsbeautifier(source, log)