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27th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference   p. 170
Exploiting Self-Modification Mechanism for Program Protection
Yuichiro Kanzaki, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Akito Monden, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Masahide Nakamura, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Ken-ichi Matsumoto, Nara Institute of Science and Technology

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DOI Bookmark: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/CMPSAC.2003.1245338
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Abstract
In this paper, we present a new method to protect soft-ware against illegal acts of hacking. The key idea is to add a mechanism of self-modifying codes to the original program, so that the original program becomes hard to be analyzed. In the binary program obtained by the proposed method, the original code fragments we want to protect are camouflaged by dummy instructions. Then, the binary program autonomously restores the original code fragments within a certain period of execution, by replacing the dummy instructions with the original ones. Since the dummy instructions are completely different from the original ones, code hacking fails if the dummy instructions are read as they are. Moreover, the dummy instructions are scattered over the program, therefore, they are hard to be identified. As a result, the proposed method helps to construct highly invulnerable software without special hardware.
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Citation:  Yuichiro Kanzaki, Akito Monden, Masahide Nakamura, Ken-ichi Matsumoto, "Exploiting Self-Modification Mechanism for Program Protection," compsac, p. 170,  27th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference,  2003