[nickmooney]

I do a bit of reverse engineering both professionally and for fun, and the two bits of “proper” education that have helped the most were my Hardware/Software Interface and Intro to Operating Systems classes in undergrad.

Learning how this stuff works in the forward direction makes spotting patterns a whole lot easier. It’s a lot easier to start RE when you’re already familiar with stuff like calling conventions or memory layout (for example).

From there, there isn’t a ton of formal education as far as I’ve seen. I am really fond of Smash the Stack’s IO wargame if you’re interested in CTF-style challenges. I also spent a good bit of time compiling my own small programs and then using them to learn the tools. When you’re starting off, RE is a lot easier when you know what you’re looking for.