Multi-stage Binary Code Obfuscation Using Improved Virtual Machine

A software obfuscator transforms a program into another executable one with the same functionality but unreadable code imple­mentation. This paper presents an algorithm of multi-stage software obfuscation method using improved virtual machine techniques. The key idea is to iteratively obfuscate a program for many times in using different interpretations. An improved virtual machine (VM) core is appended to the protected program for byte-code interpretation. Adversaries will need to crack all intermediate results in order to figure out the structure of original code. Compared with existing obfuscators, our new obfuscator generates the protected code which performs more efficiently, and enjoys proven higher level security.