So Magic numbers eh whats that ???? these are file signatures used to identify or verify the content of a file these are the first bytes in the file. Below is a list of hex values for common file types. These can be viewed or edited in a Hex editor such as the “hexeditor” command in Linux. Below is a list of some common formats
Image Files
| Name | HEX | ASCII |
| JPEG, JPG RAW Format | FF D8 FF DBFF D8 FF EE | ÿØÿÛÿØÿî |
| JPEG JIFF Format | FF D8 FF E0 00 10 4A 46 49 46 00 01 | ÿØÿà..JFIF.. |
| JPEG EXIF Format | FF D8 FF E1 ?? ?? 45 78 69 66 00 00 | ÿØÿá..Exif.. |
| GIF Format | 47 49 46 38 37 61 47 49 46 38 39 61 | GIF87a GIF89a |
| PNG Format | 89 50 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A | .PNG…. |
Executables
| Name | HEX | ASCII |
| DOS MZ executable file .EXE or .dll | 4D 5A | MZ |
Shebang Shell Script examples:#!/bin/sh#!/bin/bash#!/usr/bin/env python | 23 21 | #! |
| linux debian package file | 21 3C 61 72 63 68 3E | !<arch>. |
| RedHat RPM Package | ed ab ee db | í«îÛ |
Documents
| Name | HEX | ASCII |
| PDF document | 25 50 44 46 2d | %PDF- |
| Compound File Binary Format, a container format used for document by older versions of Microsoft Office.( doc xls ppt msg) | D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1 | |
| eXtensible Markup Language (XML) | 3c 3f 78 6d 6c 20 | <?xml |
Compressed Formats
| Name | HEX | ASCII |
| zip file format and formats based on it, such as EPUB, JAR, ODF, OOXML (zip, aar, apk, docx, epub, ipa,jar, kmz, maff, odp, ods, odt, pk3, pk4, pptx, usdz, vsdx, xlsx, xpi) | 50 4B 03 04 50 4B 05 06 (empty archive) 50 4B 07 08 (spanned archive) | PK.. |
| Tar Archive | 75 73 74 61 72 00 30 30 75 73 74 61 72 20 20 00 | ustar.00 ustar . |
| GZIP File | 1F 8B | .. |
| RAR V5 + | 52 61 72 21 1A 07 01 00 | Rar!…. |
| 7-Zip | 37 7A BC AF 27 1C | 7z¼¯’ |
Media
| Name | HEX | ASCII |
| WAV | 52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 57 41 56 45 | RIFF…. WAVE |
| AVI | 52 49 46 46 ?? ?? ?? ?? 41 56 49 20 | RIFF…. AVI. |
| OGG | 4F 67 67 53 | 0ggS |
| MIDI | 4D 54 68 64 | MThd |
| FLAC | 66 4C 61 43 | fLaC |
| mp3 file without an ID3 tag | FF FB | ÿû |
| mp3 file with ID3 tag | 49 44 33 | ID3 |
| mkv | 1A 45 DF A3 | .Eߣ |
| mpg mpeg | 00 00 01 BA 47 00 00 01 B3 | …. G …. |