New Encryption Method Fights Reverse Engineering

New submitter Dharkfiber sends an article about the Hardened Anti-Reverse Engineering System (HARES), which is an encryption tool for software that doesn't allow the code to be decrypted until the last possible moment before it's executed. The purpose is to make applications as opaque as possible to malicious hackers trying to find vulnerabilities to exploit. It's likely to find work as an anti-piracy tool as well. To keep reverse engineering tools in the dark, HARES uses a hardware trick that’s possible with Intel and AMD chips called a Translation Lookaside Buffer (or TLB) Split. That TLB Split segregates the portion of a computer’s memory where a program stores its data from the portion where it stores its own code’s instructions. HARES keeps everything in that “instructions” portion of memory encrypted such that it can only be decrypted with a key that resides in the computer’s processor. (That means even sophisticated tricks like a “cold boot attack,” which literally freezes the data in a computer’s RAM, can’t pull the key out of memory.) When a common reverse engineering tool like IDA Pro reads the computer’s memory to find the program’s instructions, that TLB split redirects the reverse engineering tool to the section of memory that’s filled with encrypted, unreadable commands.

Comments

Already sloved

[PPH]

I keep my code undeadable with a liberal use of goto statements.

Re:Already sloved

[halivar]

I keep my code undeadable with a liberal use of goto statements.

You made an infinite loop with goto?

Re:Already sloved

[BronsCon]

Is that your goto solution for preventing reverse engineering?

Re:Already sloved

[fahrbot-bot]

I keep my code undeadable with a liberal use of goto statements.

I store my undeadable code using a Walking Dead technique, whereby the binary code is reaped from the the return statuses of zombie processes killed at the last possible moment ...

Re:Already sloved

[wonkey_monkey]

That's a terrible joke. Goto your room!

Re:Already sloved

[mr_mischief]

Hardware by Intel, code by Escher.

Well, that's it...better pack up hackers...

[NotDrWho]

That's it. They've finally come up with uncrackable software. I guess all the hackers will just have to pack their bags and find another hobby now. It was a good many decades while it lasted. But now it's clearly over. Congrats to Jacob Torrey on doing what no one else has ever been able to do! No way this will ever be cracked. He's beaten us all.

Re:Bring it on, folks!

[halivar]

Ah, but count-up's are indefinite. Now they won't find it until they count to a million or something. Should have counted down, but now it's too late...

Re:Bring it on, folks!

[sexconker]

So are count-downs. 3, 2, 1, 0, -1...

So are count-tos.
1, 2, 2 and a half, 2 and three quarters...

There is a much simpler way to do this.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Hire a few Indian H1-Bs supplied by Wipro or Infosys or Cogniscent. The code they write is impossible for anyone to decode even if you discolose the the source code and the design specs.

Venkat!!! Why on God's good name are you passing the reference to a pointer to a function as a construction argument?!?!?! aarggghhhh!