Binary Obfuscation from the Top-Down: Obfuscating Executables Without Writing Assembly

Binary obfuscation is commonly applied in malware and by software vendors in order to frustrate the efforts of reverse engineers to understand the underlying code. A common misconception is one must be a master of assembly in order to properly obfuscate a binary. However, with knowledge of compiler optimizations and certain keywords, one can frustratingly obfuscate their binary simply by writing specifically crafted high-level code. This talk will attempt to teach an array of methods that can be employed to obfuscate a binary as it is compiled rather than afterward. Knowledge of C/C++ is the only prerequisite for this talk.

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