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A Framework for Evaluation of Software Obfuscation Tools for Embedded Devices

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Applications and Techniques in Information Security (ATIS 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1338))

Abstract

Obfuscation is a popular software transformation to protect intellectual property and avoid reverse engineering. It relies on introducing additional instructions and changing control-flow without affecting program semantics. This introduces overheads in terms of memory, execution time and energy consumption for resource-constrained embedded devices. In this work, we show that these overheads are dependent on three factors: the transformations and their combinations selected, the tool used to effect these transformations and the program workload. In addition, there exists a need for measuring the security of obfuscated code. In this work, we develop a framework for evaluating software obfuscation tools potentially highlighting costs and benefits associated with obfuscation and analyze energy-performance-security trade offs for embedded devices. Our experiments using two popular obfuscation tools, Obfuscation Low-Level Virtual Machine (OLLVM) and Tigress, show that obfuscation could potentially lead to a 5-fold increase in execution time and energy consumption depending on these factors. In addition, Tigress provides more security and simultaneously incurs significant energy consumption compared to OLLVM. Our cost-benefit analysis with respect to energy, performance and security can be used to determine the optimal choice of security measures for resource-constrained environments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Cybersecurity Systems and Networks, Amrita School of Engineering, Amritapuri, India

    Anjali J. Suresh & Sriram Sankaran

Authors
  1. Anjali J. Suresh
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  2. Sriram Sankaran
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Correspondence to Anjali J. Suresh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Lejla Batina

  2. Deakin University, Geelong, VIC, Australia

    Gang Li

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Suresh, A.J., Sankaran, S. (2020). A Framework for Evaluation of Software Obfuscation Tools for Embedded Devices. In: Batina, L., Li, G. (eds) Applications and Techniques in Information Security. ATIS 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1338. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4706-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4706-9_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-33-4705-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-33-4706-9

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