GoCyberChef

Overview

GoCyberChef is a modern reimagining of the popular CyberChef utility, built from the ground up in Go and compiled to WebAssembly (WASM). The goal is to create a blazing-fast, client-side Progressive Web App (PWA) for data manipulation and analysis that can be used online or offline by security professionals.

Key Features

• High Performance: Leverages the speed of Go and WebAssembly for near-native performance on complex data operations.
• Offline Capability: As a PWA, it’s installable and works entirely offline, ensuring tools are always available.
• Client-Side Security: All operations run directly in the browser, meaning sensitive data never leaves your machine.
• Modular Interface: Retains the familiar, recipe-based interface for chaining together various data operations.

Technical Implementation

• Core Logic: Written entirely in Go for performance and type safety.
• Frontend: Compiled to WebAssembly to run in the browser, with a lightweight JavaScript wrapper for DOM interaction.
• PWA Functionality: Implemented using Service Workers and a Web App Manifest to provide offline access and installability.

Challenges & Solutions

• Challenge: Efficiently manipulating the browser’s DOM from Go code compiled to WASM.
  • Solution: Utilized Go’s syscall/js package to create bindings that allow Go to call JavaScript functions and interact with web APIs.
• Challenge: Maintaining a responsive UI during heavy, synchronous data processing.
  • Solution: Structured complex operations to run in web workers where possible to prevent blocking the main browser thread.

• Go
• WebAssembly
• PWA
• JavaScript