People often find difficulty in sharing some crucial information through any mode. They want to keep that information secret and reach the recipient without any problem. The cases of hacking have tremendously increased over the past many years. People hesitate to share their information through phones or electronic media. If we look at historic times, people often send their messages in the form of signs or pictures. Now, people started sharing their crucial data in the form of signs or code which makes it difficult. This code is made that people are unable to decode it and understand the real meaning behind it.
Code obfuscation is such a technique that makes things difficult to understand. It was done in programming code for hiding trade secrets. People used to obfuscate one code or whole data for making it difficult. Obfuscation is such a tool that converts simple code into a program and makes it difficult to read and understand. It does the same work as done by dimple code. Obfuscation in computer codes makes the code harder to understand by adding illogical phrases or words. The idea is to confuse the readers with the sophisticated syntax of what you’re reading. It makes it difficult for the readers to figure out the genuine content of the message. CODE OBFUSCATION doesn’t change the real content of the code but makes its presentation difficult.
You may see that obfuscation involves several techniques. It depends on the languages in which the program is displayed. There are such languages that can be easily obfuscated. Few languages are there that are difficult to obfuscate as their original language is also complicated. Let’s go through some common obfuscating techniques.
- Renaming:- This is one common way to obfuscate the message. You can change the methods or the names of the variables in the message. The new code that will appear will have some words printable or invisible. It will make it difficult to understand by another person.
- Control Flow:- This is another technique used by computers to obfuscate their code. It is done to hide the real meaning of the code from the outside world. People who want to share some secret information or other is often done after obfuscating it. In this technique, the code is made to look like spaghetti code. The code is obfuscated in such a way that is difficult to understand. The results of this code are not clear one can’t identify the true meaning of code by looking at it. It molded in such a confusing form.
- Unused Code Removal:- This is yet another technique used for obfuscating the data. You can add anything related to the code that will make it difficult for people. It is a technique in which you will give extra information about the program. The recipient will debug the code like a chat on a word document. They will remove all the unused information. After that, they are left with the code and crucial information. It is yet another way to hide code and transfer information.
- Opaque Predicate Insertion:- This is another way to confuse people by changing the code. A lot of hackers are there who want to steal the crucial information of the country or any company and use it for their purpose. It can cause losses to the company or country. People use to send their data in the obfuscated form to confuse others. Under this technique, an expression is set in the code that can be true or false. The words like this, if, etc are written between the code is it difficult for someone to decode it. The unnecessary code is included in the original code to confuse people and to puzzle those who want to decode it.
- Anti-Debug:- It is a tool used by both software engineers as well as hackers. It used to reach out to the activity that is done in code. There is a debug tool used by engineers to understand the code line by line. The hackers also use this tool to change the code set up by the engineers. The IT sector has started using an anti-debug tool that helps them find out when the hackers are using a debug tool. This can help them to save their data from getting hacked.
- Instruction Pattern Transformation:- This is yet another technique that is used to make code difficult. There are a few instructions written that help the engineers to decode the code. These instructions are swiped with the difficult ones that make them difficult to understand. Hackers often get confused after reading instructions and thus unable to decode them.
These are the few techniques that are used to obfuscate the code. A lot of benefits are there for obfuscating the code. Let’s study those advantages one by one.
- Secrecy:- This is one of the main reasons for obfuscating any code. There is some secret information in every company and country that is crucial for them. If the information is leaked in public then it can cause serious problems. Such information is often shared by the code but that code is also obfuscated. Companies protect their codes from competitors or attackers by making them obfuscated. The valuable information stored in the code and its protection is crucial for the company.
- Efficiency:- Obfuscating the code increases its efficiency. There are a few obfuscated techniques that make code easier to transfer. The code is properly obfuscated and its efficiency increases. You can transmit the code to the recipient without any worry. It has effects on shrinking the program of the code. It can remove unused data and information.
- Security:- By using an obfuscation method, you don’t need any external security method. This is a self-protection method that is used by engineers for protecting their information. It is an in-built security application program. You can rely on this for sending any essential information to anyone. It is best for the applications in an environment where you can’t trust and that has sensitive information.
These are the things that are related to code obfuscation. OBFUSCATION is the software used to protect sensitive information. It is one of the best in-built applications that can be used.