AI-assisted tools are making embedded software easier to analyze and reverse-engineer, raising the risk to valuable software IP. This talk presents a combined protection strategy based on three complementary techniques: encryption, obfuscation, and code offloading.

The encryption component combines state-of-the-art encryption with secure, air-gapped storage for cryptographic keys. The obfuscation component includes advanced methods such as state-dependent control-flow encryption. Attack scenarios and corresponding protection strategies show how these techniques address different stages of analysis.

A fundamental challenge remains: code running on a CPU can be observed and analyzed by an attacker with access to the device. Moving selected code fragments to a secure ...