Towards Experimental Evaluation of Code Obfuscation Techniques

Conference paper

Ceccato, Mariano, Di Penta, Massimiliano, Nagra, Jasvir, Falcarin, P. and Ricca, Filippo 2008. Towards Experimental Evaluation of Code Obfuscation Techniques. 4th ACM workshop on Quality of Protection. Alexandria, Virginia, USA Oct 2008 pp. 39-46
AuthorsCeccato, Mariano, Di Penta, Massimiliano, Nagra, Jasvir, Falcarin, P. and Ricca, Filippo
TypeConference paper
Abstract

While many obfuscation schemes proposed, none of them satisfy
any strong definition of obfuscation. Furthermore secure generalpurpose
obfuscation algorithms have been proven to be impossible.
Nevertheless, obfuscation schemes which in practice slow down
malicious reverse-engineering by obstructing code comprehension
for even short periods of time are considered a useful protection
against malicious reverse engineering. In previous works, the difficulty
of reverse engineering has been mainly estimated by means of
code metrics, by the computational complexity of static analysis or
by comparing the output of de-obfuscating tools. In this paper we
take a different approach and assess the difficulty attackers have in
understanding and modifying obfuscated code through controlled
experiments involving human subjects.

KeywordsEmpirical studies; Software Obfuscation
Year2008
Conference4th ACM workshop on Quality of Protection
Accepted author manuscript
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CC BY-ND
Publication dates
PrintOct 2008
Publication process dates
Deposited25 Nov 2010
Web address (URL)http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1456362.1456371
http://hdl.handle.net/10552/1061
Additional information

Citation:
Ceccato, M. et al (2008) ‘Towards Experimental Evaluation of Code Obfuscation Techniques’ In: Proceedings of the 4th ACM workshop on Quality of Protection, Oct. 2008 Alexandria, Virginia, USA pp. 39-46.

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