Obfuscating compilers protect a software by obscuring its meaning and impeding the reconstruction of its original source code. The typical concern when defining such compilers is their robustness against reverse engineering and the performance of the produced code. Little work has been done in studying whether the security properties of a program are preserved under obfuscation. In this paper we start addressing this problem: we consider control-flow flattening, a popular obfuscation technique used in industrial compilers, and a specific security policy, namely constant-time. We prove that this obfuscation preserves the policy, i.e., that every program satisfying the policy still does after the transformation.

Control-flow flattening preserves the constant-time policy

Busi M.;Degano P.;
2020-01-01

Abstract

Obfuscating compilers protect a software by obscuring its meaning and impeding the reconstruction of its original source code. The typical concern when defining such compilers is their robustness against reverse engineering and the performance of the produced code. Little work has been done in studying whether the security properties of a program are preserved under obfuscation. In this paper we start addressing this problem: we consider control-flow flattening, a popular obfuscation technique used in industrial compilers, and a specific security policy, namely constant-time. We prove that this obfuscation preserves the policy, i.e., that every program satisfying the policy still does after the transformation.
2020
CEUR Workshop Proceedings
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
paper-08.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Versione dell'editore
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 972.33 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
972.33 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in ARCA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/5034723
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 0
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact