New approach to software code diversification in interpreted languages based on the moving target technology

Styugin, Mikhail; Zolotarev, Vyacheslav V.; Прохоров, А. И.; Gorbil, Roman

doi:10.1109/icaict.2016.7991694

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Both commercial [5,6] and open-source [7,8] obfuscation tools offer a variety of obfuscation techniques. Moreover, the category of researcher-developed obfuscation techniques and tools exhibits a diverse range of characteristics as well [9][10][11][12][13]. However, there are insufficient accurate analysis results regarding the effectiveness of source code obfuscation techniques for each tool; there is also a lack of proven measurement indicators that can quantitatively measure the strength of protection [14,15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, numerous studies on obfuscation have turned to quantitative measures when evaluating their techniques. These studies primarily utilize metrics like McCabe cyclomatic complexity [16,12,17,13,18], Line of Code (LoC) [12,[19][20][21], and runtime overhead [9,[22][23][24][25][26]. Nonetheless, there are limitations to assessing obfuscation quality when just a single or a small number of evaluation indicators are used.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Framework to Quantify the Quality of Source Code Obfuscation

Jin,

Lee,

Yang

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Malicious reverse engineering of software has served as a valuable technique that attackers can use to infringe upon and steal intellectual property. To protect against such attackers, we can employ obfuscation techniques as useful tools to safeguard software. Applying obfuscation techniques to source code can effectively prevent malicious attackers from reverse engineering a program. However, the ambiguity surrounding the protective efficacy of these source code obfuscation tools and techniques presents challenges for users in evaluating and comparing the varying degrees of protection provided. This paper attempts to address these issues and presents a methodology to quantify the effect of source code obfuscation. Our proposed method is based on three main types of data: (1) the control flow graph, (2) the program path, and (3) the performance overhead added to the process---all of which are derived from a program analysis conducted by human experts and automated tools. For the first time, we have implemented a tool that can quantitatively evaluate the quality of obfuscation techniques. Then, to validate the effectiveness of the implemented framework, we conducted experiments using four widely recognized commercial and open-source obfuscation tools. Our experimental findings, based on quantitative values related to obfuscation techniques, demonstrate that our proposed framework effectively assesses obfuscation quality.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Framework to Quantify the Quality of Source Code Obfuscation

Jin,

Lee,

Yang

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Compared to binary obfuscation, source code obfuscation generally has lower performance overhead and is more efficient. Various commercial [6,7] and open-source [8,9] tools, as well as researcher-developed methods [10][11][12][13][14], provide different obfuscation techniques. However, there is a lack of comprehensive analysis and proven quantitative measurement indicators for evaluating the effectiveness of these tools [15,16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, numerous studies on obfuscation have turned to quantitative measures when evaluating their techniques. These studies primarily utilize metrics like McCabe cyclomatic complexity [13,14,[17][18][19], Line of Code (LoC) [13,[20][21][22], and runtime overhead [10,[23][24][25][26][27][28]. Nonetheless, assessing obfuscation quality when only a single or a small number of evaluation indicators are used has limitations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Framework to Quantify the Quality of Source Code Obfuscation

Jin,

Lee,

Yang

et al. 2024

Applied Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Malicious reverse engineering of software has served as a valuable technique for attackers to infringe upon and steal intellectual property. We can employ obfuscation techniques to protect against such attackers as useful tools to safeguard software. Applying obfuscation techniques to source code can prevent malicious attackers from reverse engineering a program. However, the ambiguity surrounding the protective efficacy of these source code obfuscation tools and techniques presents challenges for users in evaluating and comparing the varying degrees of protection provided. This paper addresses these issues and presents a methodology to quantify the effect of source code obfuscation. Our proposed method is based on three main types of data: (1) the control flow graph, (2) the program path, and (3) the performance overhead added to the process—all of which are derived from a program analysis conducted by human experts and automated tools. For the first time, we have implemented a tool that can quantitatively evaluate the quality of obfuscation techniques. Then, to validate the effectiveness of the implemented framework, we conducted experiments using four widely recognized commercial and open-source obfuscation tools. Our experimental findings, based on quantitative values related to obfuscation techniques, demonstrate that our proposed framework effectively assesses obfuscation quality.

show abstract