Research Assistants: H. Chang, L. Feinstein
Sponsor: COAST Laboratory sponsors
This project involves developing a new solution to the problems associated with software tamper-resistance called self-protecting code (SPC). The idea of SPC is to have software functionally armored with code-integrity protection mechanisms such that modifications to the code result in unexpected execution behaviors (e.g. program crashes). The goal of the SPC work is not to prevent an adversary from modifying the code, but to make efforts to benefit from these changes more significant than rewriting the entire program. Potential applications of SPC include software watermarking and anti-decompilation.