ITERATED TRANSFORMATIONS AND QUANTITATIVE METRICS FOR SOFTWARE PROTECTION

Chit W. (Nick) Saw, Mariusz M. Jakubowski, Ramarathnam Venkatesan

2009

Abstract

This paper describes a new framework for design, implementation and evaluation of software-protection schemes. Our approach is based on the paradigm of iterated protection, which repeats and combines simple transformations to build up complexity and security. Based on ideas from the field of complex systems, iterated protection is intended as an element of a comprehensive obfuscation and tamper-resistance system, but not as a full-fledged, standalone solution. Our techniques can (and should) be combined with previously proposed approaches, strengthening overall protection. A long-term goal of this work is to create protection methods amenable to analysis or estimation of security in practice. As a step towards this, we present security evaluation via metrics computed over transformed code. Indicating the difficulty of real-life reverse engineering and tampering, such metrics offer one approach to move away from ad hoc, poorly analyzable approaches to protection.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

M. Jakubowski M., W. (Nick) Saw C. and Venkatesan R. (2009). ITERATED TRANSFORMATIONS AND QUANTITATIVE METRICS FOR SOFTWARE PROTECTION . In Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2009) ISBN 978-989-674-005-4, pages 359-368. DOI: 10.5220/0002220103590368

in Bibtex Style

@conference{secrypt09,
author={Mariusz M. Jakubowski and Chit W. (Nick) Saw and Ramarathnam Venkatesan},
title={ITERATED TRANSFORMATIONS AND QUANTITATIVE METRICS FOR SOFTWARE PROTECTION},
booktitle={Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2009)},
year={2009},
pages={359-368},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0002220103590368},
isbn={978-989-674-005-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT, (ICETE 2009)
TI - ITERATED TRANSFORMATIONS AND QUANTITATIVE METRICS FOR SOFTWARE PROTECTION
SN - 978-989-674-005-4
AU - M. Jakubowski M.
AU - W. (Nick) Saw C.
AU - Venkatesan R.
PY - 2009
SP - 359
EP - 368
DO - 10.5220/0002220103590368