Distributed application tamper detection via continuous software updates

Abstract

We present a new general technique for protecting clients in distributed systems against Remote Man-at-the-end (R-MATE) attacks. Such attacks occur in settings where an adversary has physical access to an untrusted client device and can obtain an advantage from tampering with the hardware itself or the software it contains. In our system, the trusted server overwhelms the analytical abilities of the untrusted client by continuously and automatically generating and pushing to him diverse client code variants. The diversity subsystem employs a set of primitive code transformations that provide an ever-changing attack target for the adversary, making tampering difficult without this being detected by the server.