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Code protection for resource-constrained embedded devices

Published: 11 June 2004 Publication History

Abstract

While the machine neutral Java bytecodes are attractive for code distribution in the highly heterogeneous embedded domain, the well-documented and standardized features also make it difficult to protect these codes. In fact, there are several tools to reverse engineer Java bytecodes. The focus of this work is the design of a substitution-based bytecode obfuscation approach that prevents code from being executed on unauthorized devices. Furthermore, we also improve the resilience of this substitution-based approach to frequency-based attacks. Using various Java class files, we show that our approach is 2.5 to 3 times less computationally intensive as compared to a traditional encryption based approach. Our experiments reveal that the protected class files could not execute on unauthorized clients.

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Cited By

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  • (2018)Diversification and obfuscation techniques for software security: A systematic literature reviewInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2018.07.007104(72-93)Online publication date: Dec-2018
  • (2009)ReferencesDisruptive Security Technologies with Mobile Code and Peer-to-Peer Networks10.1201/9781420038880.bmattOnline publication date: 7-Dec-2009
  • (2009)ReferencesDisruptive Security Technologies with Mobile Code and Peer-to-Peer Networks10.1201/9781420038880.bmattOnline publication date: 7-Dec-2009

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  1. Code protection for resource-constrained embedded devices

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    Published In

    cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices
    ACM SIGPLAN Notices  Volume 39, Issue 7
    LCTES '04
    July 2004
    265 pages
    ISSN:0362-1340
    EISSN:1558-1160
    DOI:10.1145/998300
    Issue’s Table of Contents
    • cover image ACM Conferences
      LCTES '04: Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED conference on Languages, compilers, and tools for embedded systems
      June 2004
      276 pages
      ISBN:1581138067
      DOI:10.1145/997163
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 11 June 2004
    Published in SIGPLAN Volume 39, Issue 7

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    Author Tags

    1. Java security
    2. cryptography
    3. java byte code
    4. mono-alphabetic
    5. poly-alphabetic
    6. substitution

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    Cited By

    View all
    • (2018)Diversification and obfuscation techniques for software security: A systematic literature reviewInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2018.07.007104(72-93)Online publication date: Dec-2018
    • (2009)ReferencesDisruptive Security Technologies with Mobile Code and Peer-to-Peer Networks10.1201/9781420038880.bmattOnline publication date: 7-Dec-2009
    • (2009)ReferencesDisruptive Security Technologies with Mobile Code and Peer-to-Peer Networks10.1201/9781420038880.bmattOnline publication date: 7-Dec-2009

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