Computer-Aided Reverse Engineering of Protected Software

Reverse engineering is undoing or circumventing the protections deployed on a code region. Software crackers perform this to remove license checks in commercial applications and video games, but it can also be done for legitimate purposes. Many software houses perform a security assessment phase by reverse engineering their protected software before releasing it to the market. Furthermore, anti-virus experts need to reverse engineering malware (e.g., viruses and ransomware) to understand how it works and spreads. Typically, reverse engineering is performed by hand with minimal computer support with debuggers, decompilers, and disassemblers. Nevertheless, in recent years, new research directions have proposed various promising automatic methods, primarily based on machine learning and symbolic execution techniques.