SBIR Phase I: Software Protection Shield (SoftShield)

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project proposes to develop the skeletal structure and estimate the technical feasibility of a reverse engineering protective shield software package, a novel advanced integrated secure software processing system comprising a working environment that utilizes the most promising tools and techniques to eliminate or drastically reduce the vulnerability of high-value software binaries from being reverse-engineered. This project explores creative and original concepts of secure wrapper-based capability that utilizes the most promising tools and techniques for processing software binaries. The effort will examine various reverse engineering techniques and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each technique. Based on that, innovative tools and techniques will be identified to counter those reverse engineering techniques through the capabilities of detecting hostile reverse engineering applications including debuggers and disassemblers; detecting falsified operating environments; memory and file protection; and obfuscation, as applied to executables. This set of tools and techniques will be recommended for incorporation into a package to provide the foundation for developing a prototype environment for demonstration in Phase II. The proposed project is important to advancing knowledge and understanding within the software security field since it reduces the vulnerability of high-value legacy software against reverse engineering. The project will advance discovery and understanding of software security while promoting teaching, training, and learning of protection of high performance computing (HPC). It will benefit the society through protection of US Government assets and future investments on HPC. Any computer application where software binary vulnerabilities are a concern would benefit from this technology.