Need help choosing a packing/protector software

[iNoob]

Hi,

I am looking for a packing/protector software for my MMORPG. I have tested Themida, the protection is great but performance dropped too much with the VM. 

I am now considering protecting my game client with ASPack, but I am concerned about it being unpacked too easily. Is there any packing/protecting software someone would recommend me over ASPack? What could one say about the difficulty of unpacking the newest version of ASPack?

Any assistance would be much appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2017 by iNoob

[Nacho_dj]

ASPack is not a protector, but a compressor, so don't expect any sort of protection by using this packer.
There are lots of tuts and tools to unpack ASPack easily.
So, maybe you might address your curiosity over another compressor & protector.

Best regards

Nacho_dj

[atom0s]

Things like VMProtect / Themida are sadly going to be your best bet at this point in time. Virtual machines and such are the best obfuscation you can get at this point in time. However, both are easily unpacked, with automated scripts/tools that are also shared on this forum. 

Protecting an application/game is a losing battle that you are going to have to continuously monitor, alter and focus on if you want to specifically deal with it in any successful manner. Since you said it is an MMO that you are looking to protect, I'd recommend looking into an anti-cheat as well such as Xigncode, HackShield, GameGuard, etc. Not to say these are not easily bypassed or are the best security methods either, but they do add a layer of protection to help deter people.

I'm not saying this to sound like an ass or anything but if a billion dollar company like Blizzard cannot keep hackers out of their games, don't expect to do anything better. The most you can do is stay on top of things, actively monitor for new cheats/issues with your game and be part of your game's community. Something a lot of companies fail to do is actually be part of their game's community and listen to their player base. Your players will more than likely be the biggest source of reporting issues/cheats/cheaters, or reporting new exploits/bugs/cheat sites etc. 

[sinan]

The protector version of ASPack is  ASProtect, try it 

All protector are unpackable/crackable...

 

Edited August 14, 2017 by sinan

[VirtualPuppet]

4 hours ago, atom0s said:

Things like VMProtect / Themida are sadly going to be your best bet at this point in time. Virtual machines and such are the best obfuscation you can get at this point in time. However, both are easily unpacked, with automated scripts/tools that are also shared on this forum. 

Protecting an application/game is a losing battle that you are going to have to continuously monitor, alter and focus on if you want to specifically deal with it in any successful manner. Since you said it is an MMO that you are looking to protect, I'd recommend looking into an anti-cheat as well such as Xigncode, HackShield, GameGuard, etc. Not to say these are not easily bypassed or are the best security methods either, but they do add a layer of protection to help deter people.

I'm not saying this to sound like an ass or anything but if a billion dollar company like Blizzard cannot keep hackers out of their games, don't expect to do anything better. The most you can do is stay on top of things, actively monitor for new cheats/issues with your game and be part of your game's community. Something a lot of companies fail to do is actually be part of their game's community and listen to their player base. Your players will more than likely be the biggest source of reporting issues/cheats/cheaters, or reporting new exploits/bugs/cheat sites etc. 

Sadly, I've managed to force HackShield out of production through multiple years of public integrity-check emulators, and as such, AhnLab no longer supports the HackShield software.

 

For the OP, you must realize that you should only virtualize the most vital functionality that you do not wish hackers to be able to read. If you virtualize everything, performance will drop heavily, as for each simple function, you're adding multiple larger functions that must be parsed to produce the same codeflow. Also, choosing the proper VM for your problem is also very vital. If you have a single function that isn't run too often, you could easily go with FISH Black from Themida and it wouldn't matter much on performance, even though Black version of Themida VMs are extremely heavy. However, if you're trying to virtualize multiple functions that are used often, your best bet would be to use a Red/White machine (depending on how much performance you're ready to cast aside). Also, choosing a base VM (non-hybrid) is also a clear choice for the performance-aware developer.

However, since this post is dated June 26, and you already got what I presume was the answer in your thread from July 16:

 

I believe this issue has been resolved.

[atom0s]

9 hours ago, Sprux said:

Sadly, I've managed to force HackShield out of production through multiple years of public integrity-check emulators, and as such, AhnLab no longer supports the HackShield software.

I'm aware how easy it is to bypass them, which is why I said they are not the best or guarantee anything. It's just another level of deterrence for the majority of script kiddies that are trying to hack the game with public info.