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Arbitrary control-flow embedding into multiple threads for obfuscation: A preliminary complexity and performance analysis

Proceedings of the 2nd international workshop on Security in cloud computing • 2014
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Publication Information
Authors Rasha Omar, Ahmed El-Mahdy, Erven Rohou
Keywords Not Available
Journal Proceedings of the 2nd international workshop on Security in cloud computing
Publisher ACM
Volume Not Available
Issue Not Available
Pages 51-58
publication.type International
Paper Link Not Available
Supplementary Materials Not Available
Abstract
With the proliferation of cloud computing, security becomes a key issue. Code obfuscation is a promising approach in that domain. It has been proposed to make an adversary confused about understanding the program, thereby making attacks more difficult. In this paper, we propose a novel method which exploits multi-core processing to substantially increase the complexity of programs, complicating the original ones. At basic block level, this method automatically partitions any serial thread into an arbitrary number of parallel threads. Moreover, the program semantics are preserved through using guards, guaranteeing that one basic-block be active at a time. Our method allows for possible combinations for a given program, for threads and basic-blocks, which significantly complicates the execution state, as well as changes the layout of basic blocks in memory. We provide a proof of correctness of the …