Protection of application texts and graphics against resource hacker kind of programs.

Delifisek · wrote on 24 Apr 2013, 18:15

Hello,

I develop a desktop application which uses serial to collect data and display in monitor. One of old fella was try to copy change our program texts and images using with resource hacker and or hex editor.

In previous versions I check my binaries with resource hacker and plus put base64 encoded text to protect my binary. However I'm not totaly satisfied.

So, I'm start to new version and I want to enhance my security.

How Can I add some basic reversable encryption to my texts and how can I make harder to change images inside the binary.

My best regards.

lisabeeren · wrote on 24 Apr 2013, 20:45

you could encrypt your text as you suggest with a crypto library:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/108518/rsa-encryption-library-for-c

you could also store cryptographic hashes of your images in your program somewhere, and you could check your images against these before loading them (if the image has been changed, then the hash won't match, and your program can abort).

in both cases, the key to decrypt the content, and the hashes to check against are in the program, so a determined hacker could find where these were stored in the binary, but it will slow him down at least.

that should be enough info to get you started. do some research on different crypto algorithms and libraries.

all the best.

Delifisek · wrote on 25 Apr 2013, 17:10

Oh thanks, I should think that saving hashes... It was very good idea...

I had one bad guy who chasing my programs and he haven't any capacity for that. Any determined hacker who can able wrote a crack for c++ binary also easly can rebuild my app from 0 in a week.

My best regards...

utcenter · wrote on 25 Apr 2013, 20:17

I think you best not bother, if you content is of enough interest, it will eventually get hacked. Companies spend millions on trying to preserve their IP and so far they have all failed.

But if you are going to encrypt, I'd rather go for AES - there are hardware implementations for many modern processors, so there will be less time wasted of decrypting.