Sunday 8 March 2009

Obfuscating .NET code on the cheap

I recently needed to obfuscate a .NET component I wrote, and never having done this before I started looking into the various options available. Being a small side project I really didn't want to spend big bucks.

The obvious first choice was to try out the Dotfuscator Community Edition that ships with Visual Studio as it's free. I obfuscated my component, and then disassembled it using Red Gate's Reflector.

It turned out that all it did was obfuscate my namespaces & method names, however it didn't touch the control flow of the methods, meaning that all of my logic source code was still clearly visible.

These features are available in their professional edition which is way out my budget.

Googling around, I stumbled across Eazfuscator.NET, a free .NET obfuscator written by Oleksiy Gapotchenko. Installing the app was a breeze, it even integrated with the Visual Studio tools menu.

It has some very powerful features, including control flow obfuscation, assembly merging, and re-signing strongly named assemblies. For a free app this is very impressive, as you would pay thousands for this elsewhere.

Upon running my obfuscated component through Reflector, my source code had been completely obfuscated, making me a very happy man.

So far I'm wrapped in what this app can do, and I'll keep you posted as I discover more.

1 comment:

Sumant said...

Hey... how have the experience been? This information looks very helpful, I would certainly try this. Please let me know if there is anything more to it. :)

thanks for sharing.