Attacks and risk analysis for hardware supported software copy protection systems

Recently, there is a growing interest in the research community to use tamper-resistant processors for software copy protection. Many of these tamper-resistant systems rely on a specially tailored secure processor to prevent, 1) illegal software duplication, 2) unauthorized software modification, and 3)unauthorized software reverse engineering. The published techniques primarily focused on feasibility demonstration and design details rather than analyzing security risks and potential attacks from an adversary’s perspective. The uniqueness of software copy protection may lead to some potential attacks on such a secure environment that have been largely ignored or insufficiently addressed in the literature. One should not take security for granted just because it is implemented on a tamper-resistant secure processor. Detailed analysis on some proposed ideas reveal potential vulnerability and attacks. Some of the attacks are known to the security community, nevertheless, their implica...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: DRM
• Authors: Weidong Shi, Hsien-Hsin S. Lee, Chenghuai Lu, Tao Zhang
• Keywords: DRM 2004, Potential Attacks, Software Copy Protection, Tamper-resistant