Claude Opus 4.6 Reverse Engineers Game Authentication in 7 Minutes Using Ghidra MCP

A developer working on the Kirov server emulator for Command & Conquer games tested Claude Opus 4.6's reverse engineering capabilities using Ghidra's MCP server plugin. The task involved finding the authentication verification method for Kane's Wrath, which uses the same SOAP API and hardcoded public key validation as Red Alert 3.

Setup and Prompt

The developer opened a clean binary in Ghidra, ran only the initial analysis, and gave Claude Opus 4.6 the task with a prompt that included:

• The public key in hex format
• Information about how Red Alert 3 handles authentication
• The same context they would provide to another human reverse engineer

The Ghidra MCP server plugin used was from https://github.com/starsong-consulting/GhydraMCP.

Results

Claude Opus 4.6 completed the reverse engineering task in approximately 7 minutes. The AI:

• Identified the verification method for Kane's Wrath
• Created a patch based on the existing Red Alert 3 patch format
• Renamed all functions, parameters, and data structures it discovered
• Added function comments to the code

The resulting patch for Kane's Wrath can be seen at https://github.com/sokie/cnc_game_proxy/blob/main/ra3-proxy/patch/RA3/PatchAuthKey.cpp#L123. The developer noted that while other servers like cnconline replace the public key, their approach patches the check to allow any key, theoretically making it work with any server.

The Kirov server emulator project, originally supporting only Red Alert 3, now includes auto-match support for RA3, Generals, and Kane's Wrath (coming soon), with more features than some community favorites like cnconline.