Antitamper Technology for Missile Defense

A reverse engineer who has the ability to examine software in an off-line lab has an enormous advantage over one who is forced to work “in the field”. In contrast to the software’s intended environment, a reverse engineer can work undetected, and can more easily make use of analysis tools such as debuggers or emulators if they have fine control over the system that is executing the software. One of the most challenging problems in protecting software is ensuring that it cannot be executed within such an environment. We propose to develop a new protection system that tightly binds software to a specific hardware environment. The system relies on taking a fingerprint of unique characteristics of the hardware such as timing. Building on GrammaTech’s existing tools, DARE and gtSDT, this new system will bind software such that it only operates correctly when run on hardware exhibiting the correct fingerprint, thereby preventing the software from executing if the underlying hardware is altered or replaced.