Published: 17 Feb 2024

Control Flow Obfuscation

Objective: Prevent reverse engineering and software tampering by obscuring code with deceptive conditional statements and constructs.

Process:
1. Fragment the source code.
2. Apply a sequence of transformations based on the specified obfuscation criteria to the code fragments.
3. Assemble the transformed fragments back into the code, preserving the original execution behavior.

Benefits:
- Discourages reverse engineering by confusing decompilers.
- Protects software from malicious modifications.

Limitations:
- Only control flows are targeted for obfuscation.

Skater's Linker Interface

Purpose: Combine multiple modules into a single file for distribution.

Options:
- Link multiple managed executables or assemblies into a single module or assembly.
- Securely create shared libraries after linkage.

Considerations:
- If all application functionality is not required immediately, consider dividing the application into smaller modules or libraries.
- Avoid missing DLLs during application deployment.

Note: Linked assemblies are not obfuscated. The .NET runtime loads linked assemblies when a type is referenced.

Performance Improvement:
- Packaging multiple modules into a single file can improve performance by reducing the time required for the loader to resolve dependencies.

Obscuring Linked Modules:
- Link modules after the main assembly has been obfuscated.
- The linked referenced and non-referenced assemblies will be included in the final obfuscated assembly.