Designing a Code Obfuscation Scheme for Software Protection

Abstract

Software piracy and intellectual property theft has brought about a financial decrease in revenue for the producers of software systems. Moreso, malicious end-users act as Man-At-The-End (MATE) attackers and dangerously inspect software codes either statically or dynamically to steal them. Developers need to create client applications that contain confidential information and data. As a result, large scale software firms constantly strive to secure hidden algorithms and vital programming components contained in their applications in order to have competitive advantage. The focus of this study is to design a code obfuscation scheme for software and intellectual property protection. The methodology employed includes use of programming tool and algorithms that described the key processes of the scheme. To demonstrate the strength and capability of our approach, user evaluation was conducted to arrive at the cost, potency and resilience of the scheme. Results indicate that majority of the respondents believe that the developed obfuscator is inexpensive and that it does not adversely affect memory and execution time. The current study would provide software developers the tool to obscure their intellectual property against theft.