Integrity and security of application programs critical to National Security are vulnerable to differential analysis, reverse engineering, and exploitation of static buffer overflows. Without incorporating software protection initiatives, these vulnerabilities can be leveraged by an attacker to… More

Traditional development efforts leave software vulnerable to reverse engineering, tamper, and access by unauthorized individuals (insider threat). While these threats are not new, advancements in easily hidden removable media such as USB drives and memory cards make them more prevalent. One low-cost… More

Software critical to national security and essential to a corporation's survival can easily be exploited through reverse engineering and unauthorized access. Without innovative protection initiatives, these vulnerabilities can be leveraged by an attacker to distribute a program without proper… More

The ability to protect computer software against malicious attacks originating from an equal or greater privilege level remains exceedingly difficult even in "best case" operational scenarios. During situations such as this, the predominant tools for thwarting reverse-engineering and piracy efforts… More

Traditional software developed for most general-purpose computing platforms conforms to some pre-determined standard file structure. This standardized structure is important because it allows files to be efficiently loaded by the operating system, easily debugged and analyzed, and makes them… More

The foundation of software protection is built around guarding against reverse engineering, tampering, privacy/theft, and unauthorized execution. One means of preventing a malicious attack is to use software-hardware locking to "bind" an application to a specific computer or set of computers so it… More

Software critical to National Security and essential to a corporation's survival can be exploited through reverse engineering and unauthorized access. Without innovative protection initiatives, these vulnerabilities can be leveraged to distribute programs or critical information without proper… More

The explosive growth of digital storage, transport, and processing technologies has allowed for enormous advances in the way that information is created, accessed, and disseminated. Unfortunately, data protection standards have failed to keep pace with advances in the digital revolution. With an… More

There are many applications for a net-centric data dissemination and authentication capability, which utilizes emerging steganography and watermarking technology in addition to traditional encryption, hashing, and time stamping techniques. The Global Information Grid (GIG) would benefit greatly… More

ZCT is a volatile memory forensics capability. In Phase I, Pikewerks implemented cross view detection to identify both known and unknown kernel rootkits; and other activity attempting to subvert the normal operations of the operating system. In Phase II Pikewerks proposes to 1) expand collection of… More

Rootkits can be classified into four common variations: user-level, kernel-level, device-level and "other-level". Each differs in the level of complexity and ease of detection. Rootkit detection is not a new challenge and has been demonstrated for user and kernel-level rootkits using a number of… More

Pikewerks proposes to research and develop methods to securely load and execute sensitive software modules in a covert manner that cannot easily be defeated by even the most dedicated adversaries. The mechanisms developed will enhance software protection systems by making them more robust against… More

The ability to protect software from piracy, unauthorized use, reverse-engineering, or other malicious analysis represents a valuable commodity in a currently underserved market. While existing techniques for protecting software applications are able to stop juvenile cracking attempts, a desperate… More

The explosive growth of digital storage, transport, and processing technologies has allowed for enormous advances in the way that information is created, accessed, and disseminated. Thus, sensitive information that used to be kept under physical lock-and-key is now quite often left completely… More

Akita is a software-based situational awareness system that aids in the protection of sensitive applications by using inherent system characteristics to generate unique encryption/decryption keys. Similar to biometrics taken from humans, digital metrics can be used to create a unique fingerprint of… More

Anti-Forensics is the art and practice of obscuring data storage, transmission, and execution in such a way that it remains hidden from even a professional, dedicated examiner. Pikewerks has identified a number of additional anti-forensic research areas that would significantly enhance the… More

Pikewerks will develop a method to autonomously self-organize, monitor, and repair Operating System kernels, modules, and protected applications across a network. The approach being proposed is a layered solution consisting of four parts: application healing, distributed host kernel healing, System… More

The rapid increase in diverse and interconnected Information Technology (IT) applications necessitates software solutions that can simultaneously provide cyber situation awareness and real-time status of health of the networked environment. There is a pressing need to aggregate and consolidate… More

The ability to provide positive identification and authentication of data as it is disseminated throughout a network environment remains unsolved for the vast majority of current operational deployments; however, recent advances in steganography and watermarking technology have now begun to provide… More

One of the most significant weaknesses that faces modern software protection solutions is the reliance on static policies and rule sets that are established based on "known" attack methods at the time of development. In reality, attacks are not static; they adapt over time, and evolve to defeat… More

Tamper resistant systems play a key role in preventing and/or delaying the exploitation of critical technologies in U.S. weapons systems. Pikewerks has identified a number of additional tamper response mechanisms that would significantly enhance the effectiveness of tamper resistant systems. This… More

The co-existence of IPv6 communication on established IPv4 networks introduces new security risks. Pikewerks has identified a number of research areas that would significantly improve the network analysis toolset available to network and system administrators and provide transition-phase tunnel… More

The majority of existing computer security products and software development efforts have assumed that the OS kernel, firmware, and low-level subsystems of the underlying computer architecture are trusted entities. However, recent demonstrations of novel and sophisticated attacks on several… More

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are critical elements in electrical, water, oil/gas, and manufacturing services involving supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distributed control systems (DCS), and programmable logic controllers (PLCs). These systems allow operators to monitor sensor… More

U.S. and coalition forces are increasingly becoming more technologically advanced. Technologies such as the Tactical Ground Reporting (TIGR) System and the Remote Operated Video Enhanced Receiver (ROVER) are but two technologies that use small form factor, ultra portable devices. Unfortunately,… More

The Pikewerks InTrust system is a two-stage system designed to detect malicious implants or alterations in COTS hardware and firmware. It is meant to be used during both the integration/pre-deployment and the deployment stages to first establish trust and then maintain that trust during fielding.… More

When attackers decide they are going to try to attack a network, the first task they set out to do is research. They research and gather information about the network and its structure for possible inclusion in a future attack. All of the research and information gathered will still be valid if the… More

Tamper-resistant systems play a key role in preventing and/or delaying the exploitation of critical technologies in U.S. weapons systems. The main focus of this effort is to identify methods for responding to tamper events and to develop innovative response techniques to protect CPI from… More

With the ongoing involvement of computers in all facets of modern society, both private and public organizations increasingly rely on computer networks to support key portions of their critical infrastructure. Consequently, those networks contain increasingly more sensitive information, making them… More

Even though the issues of security and trust of sensitive information have existed for hundreds of years, the increasing reliance on computer networks to transmit sensitive information has brought these matters to the forefront of information security. The old methods of relying on trusted couriers… More

Pikewerks'Protection for Industrial and Environmental Controls from Exploitation, or PIECE, will be a cross-platform suite of capabilities providing anti-exploitation and anti-reconnaissance for Industrial Control Systems. PIECE will provide a suite of capabilities for Windows, Linux, VxWorks,… More

This proposal presents novel approaches for measuring, verifying, and assuring proper digital system configuration. The proposed research combines hardware and software to provide improved verification of trusted system components, including detecting circuit damage, electronic measuring probes and… More

Criminal organizations, self-interested individuals, and many foreign militaries employ email-based attacks, referred to as phishing attacks, to deceive individuals into unwittingly divulging private, personal, sensitive, or proprietary information. One of the primary weaknesses in today"s… More

Deception Studio (DS) is a learning, behavior-based defense system for ensuring service availability and trust. DS's learning capabilities include attack detection, prediction, and attribution and can react to attacks in real time by shaping an adversary's perception and creating an… More

Security in and trust of sensitive information communication has been a critical issue as long as humans have been sending messages, but the increasing reliance on computer networks to transmit sensitive information has brought these matters to the forefront like never before. Old methods of trusted… More

With the ongoing involvement of computers in all facets of modern society, both private and public organizations increasingly rely on computer networks to support key portions of their critical infrastructure. Consequently, those networks contain increasingly more sensitive information, making them… More

ABSTRACT: As modern technology has produced a highly-diversified suite of technologies to build upon, warfighting assets have grown, shrunk, become more powerful, and changed in almost every other quantifiable dimension. Following these changes and the proliferation of network-based systems, the… More