Advanced Software Protection for Embedded Applications

Software reverse engineering has become a science of well-defined methods, tools, and philosophies. Known approaches – such as white-box, black-box, and gray-box attacks – and highly-intricate tools – such as debuggers, decompilers, and disassemblers – can be combined to reveal the secrets of software intellectual property and to steal once-secret code and data. Current approaches to software anti-tamper protection that utilize software mechanisms for security have proven largely ineffective when attacked by a well-funded enemy. The complexity of software anti-tamper approaches often lead to coding errors that have been exploited by disciplined attackers. In the case of embedded software utilized by the DOD, the attacker could be a wealthy foreign government with a great deal of expertise, personnel, and resources. Luna Innovations proposes to augment its Secure Software Platform (SSP), which protects embedded software through robust hardware-accelerated software anti-tamper mechanisms. By leveraging the advantages of a hardware-assisted approach – better performance, better security, and reduced overall complexity – the Luna SSP significantly increases the required cost and time for a software reverse engineering effort. This effort will augment the SSP’s functionality to include advanced hardware and software attack detection/response techniques, data remanence solutions, and internal key generation concepts.