C++: How to encrypt strings at compile time?

Question

I want to hide some strings in my .exe so people can\'t simply just open the .exe and look at all the strings there. I don\'t care about the strength of the encrypting metho

Answer 1

This probably doesn't apply to the ancient compiler of the question, but on more more modern C++ implementations, we can use a string literal operator template that's declared constexpr to implement compile-time obfuscation. For this, I've used GCC 7.2.0 with -std=c++17 (and a full set of warning options, of course).

Firstly, we define a type to hold our obfuscated string data, with a conversion operator to produce a plaintext string on demand:

#include <array>
#include <string>

template<typename Char>
static const Char SECRET = 0x01;

template<typename Char,
         typename std::basic_string<Char>::size_type Length>
struct obfuscated_string
{
    using String = std::basic_string<Char>;

    const std::array<const Char, Length> storage;

    operator String() const
    {
        String s{storage.data(), Length};
        for (auto& c: s)
            c ^= SECRET<Char>;
        return s;
    }
};

Now, the literal operator template to convert a source-code literal to an obfuscated string:

template<typename ctype, ctype...STR>
constexpr obfuscated_string<ctype, sizeof... (STR)> operator ""_hidden()
{
    return { { (STR ^ SECRET<ctype>)... } };
}

To demonstrate:

#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    static const auto message = "squeamish ossifrage"_hidden;
    std::string plaintext = message;
    std::cout << plaintext << std::endl;
}

We can inspect the object code with the strings program. The binary doesn't contain squeamish ossifrage anywhere; instead it has rptd`lhri!nrrhgs`fd. I've confirmed this with a range of optimisation levels to demonstrate that the conversion back to std::string doesn't get pre-computed, but I advise you conduct your own tests whenever you change compiler and/or settings.

(I'm deliberately ignoring whether this is an advisable thing to do - merely presenting a technical working solution).

Answer 2

You can't encrypt strings (string literals) by С++ compiler or preprocessor, but you can write a pre-build tool which will parse your source code, and encrypt strings.

Or, you can try to use boost::mpl::string.

Answer 3

you can encrypt it using macros or write your own preprocessor

#define CRYPT8(str) { CRYPT8_(str "\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0") }
#define CRYPT8_(str) (str)[0] + 1, (str)[1] + 2, (str)[2] + 3, (str)[3] + 4, (str)[4] + 5, (str)[5] + 6, (str)[6] + 7, (str)[7] + 8, '\0'

// calling it
const char str[] = CRYPT8("ntdll");

Answer 4

Here is what I currently use it has hacks to support sprintf functions which spilled plain-text in compiled binary file. You could now use w_sprintf_s instead of sprintf, like so

char test[256] = { 0 };
w_sprintf_s(test, 256, XorStr("test test :D %d %+d\n"), 1, 1337);

or

wchar_t test[256] = { 0 };
w_sprintf_s(test, 256, XorStrW(L"test test from unicode :D %d %+d\n"), 1, 1337);

May add support for wchar_t wide strings like arkan did.. but I have no use for them right now as I don't write anything in symbols / unicode.

#pragma once
#include <string>
#include <array>
#include <cstdarg>

#define BEGIN_NAMESPACE( x ) namespace x {
#define END_NAMESPACE }

BEGIN_NAMESPACE(XorCompileTime)

constexpr auto time = __TIME__;
constexpr auto seed = static_cast< int >(time[7]) + static_cast< int >(time[6]) * 10 + static_cast< int >(time[4]) * 60 + static_cast< int >(time[3]) * 600 + static_cast< int >(time[1]) * 3600 + static_cast< int >(time[0]) * 36000;

// 1988, Stephen Park and Keith Miller
// "Random Number Generators: Good Ones Are Hard To Find", considered as "minimal standard"
// Park-Miller 31 bit pseudo-random number generator, implemented with G. Carta's optimisation:
// with 32-bit math and without division

template < int N >
struct RandomGenerator
{
private:
    static constexpr unsigned a = 16807; // 7^5
    static constexpr unsigned m = 2147483647; // 2^31 - 1

    static constexpr unsigned s = RandomGenerator< N - 1 >::value;
    static constexpr unsigned lo = a * (s & 0xFFFF); // Multiply lower 16 bits by 16807
    static constexpr unsigned hi = a * (s >> 16); // Multiply higher 16 bits by 16807
    static constexpr unsigned lo2 = lo + ((hi & 0x7FFF) << 16); // Combine lower 15 bits of hi with lo's upper bits
    static constexpr unsigned hi2 = hi >> 15; // Discard lower 15 bits of hi
    static constexpr unsigned lo3 = lo2 + hi;

public:
    static constexpr unsigned max = m;
    static constexpr unsigned value = lo3 > m ? lo3 - m : lo3;
};

template <>
struct RandomGenerator< 0 >
{
    static constexpr unsigned value = seed;
};

template < int N, int M >
struct RandomInt
{
    static constexpr auto value = RandomGenerator< N + 1 >::value % M;
};

template < int N >
struct RandomChar
{
    static const char value = static_cast< char >(1 + RandomInt< N, 0x7F - 1 >::value);
};

template < size_t N, int K, typename Char >
struct XorString
{
private:
    const char _key;
    std::array< Char, N + 1 > _encrypted;

    constexpr Char enc(Char c) const
    {
        return c ^ _key;
    }

    Char dec(Char c) const
    {
        return c ^ _key;
    }

public:
    template < size_t... Is >
    constexpr __forceinline XorString(const Char* str, std::index_sequence< Is... >) : _key(RandomChar< K >::value), _encrypted{ enc(str[Is])... }
    {
    }

    __forceinline decltype(auto) decrypt(void)
    {
        for (size_t i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
            _encrypted[i] = dec(_encrypted[i]);
        }
        _encrypted[N] = '\0';
        return _encrypted.data();
    }
};

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//-- Note: XorStr will __NOT__ work directly with functions like printf.
//         To work with them you need a wrapper function that takes a const char*
//         as parameter and passes it to printf and alike.
//
//         The Microsoft Compiler/Linker is not working correctly with variadic 
//         templates!
//  
//         Use the functions below or use std::cout (and similar)!
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

static auto w_printf = [](const char* fmt, ...) {
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, fmt);
    vprintf_s(fmt, args);
    va_end(args);
};

static auto w_printf_s = [](const char* fmt, ...) {
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, fmt);
    vprintf_s(fmt, args);
    va_end(args);
};

static auto w_sprintf = [](char* buf, const char* fmt, ...) {
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, fmt);
    vsprintf(buf, fmt, args);
    va_end(args);
};

static auto w_sprintf_ret = [](char* buf, const char* fmt, ...) {
    int ret;
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, fmt);
    ret = vsprintf(buf, fmt, args);
    va_end(args);
    return ret;
};

static auto w_sprintf_s = [](char* buf, size_t buf_size, const char* fmt, ...) {
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, fmt);
    vsprintf_s(buf, buf_size, fmt, args);
    va_end(args);
};

static auto w_sprintf_s_ret = [](char* buf, size_t buf_size, const char* fmt, ...) {
    int ret;
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, fmt);
    ret = vsprintf_s(buf, buf_size, fmt, args);
    va_end(args);
    return ret;
};

//Old functions before I found out about wrapper functions.
//#define XorStr( s ) ( XorCompileTime::XorString< sizeof(s)/sizeof(char) - 1, __COUNTER__, char >( s, std::make_index_sequence< sizeof(s)/sizeof(char) - 1>() ).decrypt() )
//#define XorStrW( s ) ( XorCompileTime::XorString< sizeof(s)/sizeof(wchar_t) - 1, __COUNTER__, wchar_t >( s, std::make_index_sequence< sizeof(s)/sizeof(wchar_t) - 1>() ).decrypt() )

//Wrapper functions to work in all functions below
#define XorStr( s ) []{ constexpr XorCompileTime::XorString< sizeof(s)/sizeof(char) - 1, __COUNTER__, char > expr( s, std::make_index_sequence< sizeof(s)/sizeof(char) - 1>() ); return expr; }().decrypt()
#define XorStrW( s ) []{ constexpr XorCompileTime::XorString< sizeof(s)/sizeof(wchar_t) - 1, __COUNTER__, wchar_t > expr( s, std::make_index_sequence< sizeof(s)/sizeof(wchar_t) - 1>() ); return expr; }().decrypt()

END_NAMESPACE