Program Protection through Software-based Hardware Abstraction

J. McDonald, Ramya Manikyam, Sébastien Bardin, Richard Bonichon, Todd Andel

2021

Abstract

Software companies typically embed one or more secrets in their programs to protect their intellectual property (IP) investment. These secrets are most often processed in code through evaluation of point functions, where only the correct password, PIN, or registration/activation code will authorize an end-user to legally install or use a product. Man-at-the-End (MATE) attacks can break assumptions of program security to find embedded secrets because they involve legitimate software owners who have complete access to the software and its execution environment. In this research, we present a novel approach to software MATE protection that leverages gate-level hardware representation, namely software-based hardware abstraction (SBHA). As a new proposed form of virtualization for software protection, SBHA demonstrates a light overhead – especially compared to much costlier traditional virtualization transformations, while completely defeating almost all symbolic execution-based attackers that were studied. Overall, SBHA bridges the gap between hardware and software protection, paving the way for future developments.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

McDonald J., Manikyam R., Bardin S., Bonichon R. and Andel T. (2021). Program Protection through Software-based Hardware Abstraction. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT, ISBN 978-989-758-524-1, pages 247-258. DOI: 10.5220/0010557502470258

in Bibtex Style

@conference{secrypt21,
author={J. McDonald and Ramya Manikyam and Sébastien Bardin and Richard Bonichon and Todd Andel},
title={Program Protection through Software-based Hardware Abstraction},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT,},
year={2021},
pages={247-258},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010557502470258},
isbn={978-989-758-524-1},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Security and Cryptography - Volume 1: SECRYPT,
TI - Program Protection through Software-based Hardware Abstraction
SN - 978-989-758-524-1
AU - McDonald J.
AU - Manikyam R.
AU - Bardin S.
AU - Bonichon R.
AU - Andel T.
PY - 2021
SP - 247
EP - 258
DO - 10.5220/0010557502470258