Abstract: Software obfuscation transforms code such that it is more difficult to reverse engineer. However, it is known that given enough resources, an attacker will successfully reverse engineer an obfuscated program. Therefore, an open challenge for software obfuscation is estimating the time an obfuscated program is able to withstand a given reverse engineering attack. This talk will present the key software characteristics for estimating the time needed by symbolic execution attacks, to recover a hidden secret key inside obfuscated software.

Profile: Sebastian Banescu is a PhD student at the Chair of Software Engineering at TU Munich, since April 2013. His research focus is developing mechanisms for protecting client-side software against Man-At-The-End (MATE) attackers, using obfuscation and software diversity, as well as evaluating such mechanisms via automated analysis and reverse engineering. Previously, he received a MSc. degree in IT Security, from Eindhoven University of Technology and a BSc. degree in Computer Science and Engineering, from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.