GEF

GEF (GDB Enhanced Features) is a comprehensive GDB plugin that transforms the standard GNU Debugger into a modern, feature-rich environment tailored for exploit developers and reverse engineers working on Linux systems. It provides colorized disassembly, register displays, stack visualization, heap analysis, automatic breakpoint commands, and dozens of exploit-development-specific commands that dramatically improve the debugging workflow. Binary exploitation practitioners, malware analysts, and CTF players use GEF as their primary debugging interface because it surfaces critical information like memory mappings, pattern generation, format string helpers, and ROP gadget searching directly within the GDB session. GEF supports multiple architectures including x86, ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, and SPARC, and integrates with tools like Binary Ninja, IDA Pro, and pwntools through its Python API.