An efficient VM-based software protection

Averbuch, Amir; Kiperberg, Michael; Zaidenberg, Nezer Jacob

doi:10.1109/icnss.2011.6059968

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…At present, we can divide the existing structure into three categories: centralized model [4,31], Chained model [32] and Hybrid model [32,33]. In this paper, we prefer to use the third one.…”

Section: Dispatchermentioning

confidence: 99%

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VMGuards: A Novel Virtual Machine Based Code Protection System with VM Security as the First Class Design Concern

Tang

et al. 2018

Applied Sciences

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Process-level virtual machine (PVM) based code obfuscation is a viable means for protecting software against runtime code tampering and unauthorized code reverse engineering. PVM-based approaches rely on a VM to determine how instructions of the protected code region are scheduled and executed. Therefore, it is crucial to protect the VM against runtime code tampering that alters the instructions and behavior of the VM. This paper presents VMGuards, a novel PVM-based code protection system that puts the security of VM as the first class design concern. Our approach advances prior work by promoting security of the VM as the first class design constraint. We achieve this by introducing two new instruction sets to protect the internal implementations of critical code segments and the host runtime environment where the VM runs in. Our new instruction sets not only have an identical code structure as standard virtual instructions, but also provide additional information to allow the VM to check whether the critical internal implementation or the runtime environment is affected. We evaluate our approach by using a set of real-life applications. Experimental results show that our approach provides stronger and more fine-grained protection when compared to the state-of-the-art with little extra overhead.

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Section: Dispatchermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Code obfuscation technique based on process-level virtual machines (PVMs) is becoming a viable means to protect software systems from malicious tampering. Recent studies have shown that such techniques are effective in managing digital copy rights [2], code protection [3], and tamper-proofing [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

VMGuards: A Novel Virtual Machine Based Code Protection System with VM Security as the First Class Design Concern

Tang

et al. 2018

Applied Sciences

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“…Barrantes [5] proposed the concept of instruction-set randomization to improve program's resistance to code-injection attacks. Amir [4] proposed a more efficient VM-based software protection. They don't rely on obscurity but rely on the system itself and cryptographic measures to develop VMCbased conditional access and trusted computing environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

TDVMP

Fang

et al. 2014

Proceedings of ACM SIGPLAN on Program Protection and Reverse Engineering Workshop 2014

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The VM (Virtual effective solution to protect software, making it extremely a Machine)-based software protection technique provides difficulty to analyze and crack. In this paper, we improve it from two aspects. Firstly, the time diversity is to fight against cumulative attack by making software executing along variant paths in different running time. Secondly, transform instructions in an execution path with reducing performance penalty through controlling deformation strategy. At last, we design and develop a VM-based protection with time diversity system, named TDVMP, and carry out some experiments with it. The results show that the improvements are effective.

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“…Barrantes [4] proposed the concept of instruction-set randomization to improve program's resistance to code-injection attacks. Amir [5] proposed an efficient VM-based software protection. They avoid relying on obscurity and rely only on the assumptions about the system itself and on cryptographic measures to develop VM-based conditional access/trusted computing environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

NISLVMP: Improved Virtual Machine-Based Software Protection

Fang

Yin

et al. 2013

2013 Ninth International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Security

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The VM (Virtual Machine)-based software protection technique provides an effective solution to protect software, making it extremely difficult to analyze and crack. This technique has become the research focus of software protection. In this paper, we introduce the general design ideas of this technique. However, there exist some vulnerabilities in the design. We introduce these vulnerabilities in detail and come up with some improvements to mitigate them. We design and develop a VM-based protection system, named NISLVMP, and carry out some experiments with it. The results show that the improvements are effective. KeywordsVM-based software protection; dynamic attack; multi-VM-Context; security virtual instruction.

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An efficient VM-based software protection

Cited by 13 publications

References 12 publications

VMGuards: A Novel Virtual Machine Based Code Protection System with VM Security as the First Class Design Concern

VMGuards: A Novel Virtual Machine Based Code Protection System with VM Security as the First Class Design Concern

TDVMP

NISLVMP: Improved Virtual Machine-Based Software Protection

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