title: PE File Format - What is between the section table and the first section?
body: <p>When looking at PE files in a hex editor, I often encountered some bytes between the section table and the first section, which doesn't really make sense to me. As far as I am concerned, there should be a 00-byte padding in order to fit the alignment. However, here is a screenshot which demonstrates the opposite:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/qSiaL.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/qSiaL.png" alt=""></a>
  </p>
  
  <p>As it turned out the highlighted block is pretty much the Bound Import Table. But I am still confused. Why is this table not located in a section? Is this always the case or is it just the specification of a certain compiler/linker? I did not find any documentation on this specific issue. Everything one can find on this topic basically says:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>DOS MZ Header</li>
  <li>DOS Stub</li>
  <li>PE Header</li>
  <li>Section Table</li>
  <li>Section 1</li>
  <li>Section 2</li>
  <li>Section 3</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>... and so on</p>
  
  <p>Before I encountered this issue I was not even aware of the fact, that there can be things outside of the sections (besides the ones i listed above, of course).</p>
  
  <p><strong>[EDIT]</strong></p>
  
  <p>Proof of concept (Since Mox did not believe me):</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/8xDRF.png" alt="LordPE"></p>