Stunnix VBS-Obfus - the obfuscator for VBScript source code

The following obfuscation methods are supported:

• Md5 sum with user-specified "salt": sample replacement is zd7b6a02ec5. The salt, number of characters from hexified version of md5 sum and a prefix ("z" in the sample above) are the options of this mangler;
• Combinations of characters from a user-specified set: e.g. if set is "l" and "I" (i.e. capital 'i' and small 'L'), it will generate names like "lIIlllIl". If the set is all lowercase letters, names like "bjhepjsdlrf" will be generated. Manglers take three options: a set of characters, salt string and length of resultant name;
• Shortest possible symbol name (great for minimizing output size) - so-called VBScript compression mode. All VBScript in the project will be studied and symbol use count calculated.
• Prefixing symbol: listOfCustomers becomes; MyPrefix_listOfCustomers — great for debugging, since all error messages identify which symbol in the input file caused the problem;

The results of all the methods (called "symbol name obfuscators" or "symbol manglers" in documentation ), except the last one (listOfCustomers-> MyPrefix_listOfCustomers) cannot be reveresed. This guarantees obfuscated VBScript code cannot be recovered and makes it hard to analyze,

All "symbolname manglers" can be applied to VBScript Protection Projects consisting of an arbitrary number of files.

Mapping between the original and replacement symbol names are stored along with the project so developers can always recall the original name of symbol.

Users have an option to manually specify symbol replacement.

Users have an option to specify symbols that shouldn't be renamed (lists can be attached to each individual file). Strictly speaking, there are 2 types of such lists, ones in which symbols are checked case-sensitive, and others in which symbols are checked case-insensitive.

Users can also define lists of suffixes that should be kept in symbols as-is (so everything before the suffix is mangled, while keeping suffix the same) — that is if _onClick is in the list of such suffixes to keep and md5 symbolname mangler is active, then openBtn_onClick it will be replaced with something like zd8ac37d6e_onClick, Lists of symbols for standard interfaces used by VBScript are shipped with ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder. Users can easliy disable some of the "exceptions" in these shipped lists by listing some symbols as "antiexceptions" (these can be individually specified for each VBScript file in the project).

There is an option of storing a symbol map as a comment inside protected version of each file.

The replacement expression can be made different even for the same constant, but in different places in your code (e.g. in one place and (&h14b6+2119-&h1c15) 2 lines below it), or it can be the same for a given numeric constant. This makes analysis of changes between different builds of your code more difficult.

Of course there is an option not to obfuscate numeric constants.

• Leave only newlines in the comments. I.e. comments will span same number of lines but there won't be any text in them. This will keep line numbers of the protected code same as in original code (if you specify newlines in the protected code are not to be removed),
• Replace all characters but newlines with 'x'
• Replace all characters but spaces and newlines with 'x'

This step won't do anything with linebreaks in the code.

Of course this stage is optional.

There is a setting to rewrap the code into several lines, each being no longer than specified number of characters.

Sometimes it's better not to apply this step if your code is not well-debugged and you wish error messages to contain line numbers matching your original code.

Of course this stage is optional.

By default, encoding is applied to the result of obfuscation, but it's possible to apply encoding to original source directly. This allows effortless code hiding that does not require any adaptation of the VBScript code.

Of course this stage is optional too.

See samples for how encoded VBScript looks like.

The code language is determined using various attributes (type or language) of the <SCRIPT> tag. If the language is not specified, it is assumed to be VBScript code, provided that developer specified to treat all code in unspecified language as VBScript code.

It is possible to add special attribute (by default its name is stunnix-obfus-skip, but it can be changed in the options) to the <SCRIPT> element to tell ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder not to protect code inside it.

it is also possible to specify that ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder not to protect any code inside the document. This is useful if developers wish to use ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder to mangle markup and content of html, asp, php, xml and other types of documents.

Obfuscation of code inside value of href attribute is an unique feature of ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder.

This works not only in html, but in all documents with server-side markup known to ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder.

Special markup like Server Side Includes are not preserved, since ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder differentiates them from HTML-style comments.

This can, of course, be turned off.

Removing extra spaces and newlines makes your document look like single line, making it easy to study.

This can, of course, be turned off.

becomes the following when mangled:

<div align="&#x6c;eft">&#x74;&#x68;&#x65; t&#x65;xt</div>

International characters are not mangled this way to avoid possible problems.

it is possible to specify a percentage of characters to be converted into entities. Converting less than 95% of characters into entities makes them appear more random.

It is also possible to separately configure the conversion of characters inside the document content and in attribute values.

This can, of course, be turned off.

becomes the following when mangled:

<DiV aLIgN=left>the text</dIV>

It's possible to separately configure the alternation of case of letters for tag and attibute names

This can, of course, be turned off and original case can be preserved. There are also options to foce all characters into uppercase or lowercase.

The encoding performed by it cannot be undone by the majority of VBScript decoders on the market.

It is possible to encode only a subset of the files of a VBScript project.

It is also possible to encode only selected parts of the source code by activating special functionality of ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder.

• making obfuscated and encoded VBScript scripts expire (i.e. scripts will stop working after particular date), with ability to select the current time source;
• binding to server (single allowed host name, list of hostname tails, regular expression a server name must match) with ability to select the source of server name &mdash for client-side and server-side code;
• user-implemented checks that allow the implementation of any other checks (like making scripts not work on Sundays);

All licensing checks are assigned to a block of code by means of a special initialization code. Without this code, the VBScript code won't work correctly. As well, the whole block of VBScript code is encoded to protect it from analysis and modification. Removing this block of code from the script body will make the script malfunction.

See more details here.

A single VBScript protecting mode can be attached to a given file; modes inherit settings from other modes (typically predefined ones) which requires very little effort to configure protection for the project. The mode concept allows the handling of some files in the project as files with server-side VBScript to be obfuscated, other files - as with client-side VBScript to be obfuscated, others - as html files to be used as a source for names of HTML objects and form elements, and other group of files - as static files that are either copied as is to output directory, or are not copied at all. Modes also specify whether or not to encode VBScript, so each VBScript obfuscation project can partly contain files that have been VBScript encoded and other VBScript parts that have not been encoded, but are still obfuscated. Files with obfuscated VBScript can have different copyright headers than other files; the mangling of strings or comments can also be performed differently in different files in the project.

Obfuscation Project Manager is designed to be a more convenient alternative to Makefiles so it has functionality present in all IDEs for managing the project - i.e. Build, Rebuild Changed, Clean operations.

Users who prefer to use the command line interface or single-click obfuscation and encoding of VBScript and html in an entire project are able to compose a so-called build script. A build script is a special project-specific perl program that is a smart stand-alone replacement for a project-specific Makefile which already includes the functionality of the Make utility. For a project using Obfuscation Project Manager for ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder, just invoke that buildscript to perform operation such as cleaning all output files, reprotecting only changed files or reprotecting all files (with ability to specify only a subset of files).

You can see ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder Project Manager running on our site in demo mode (destructive and editing operations are disabled in it).

Developers just have to pass the name of that method (even with the name of object it's called on) to ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder and it will protect all source code in any string constants found between parentheses, even if other expressions appear between those parentheses - e.g. variables being concatenated, or even some other functions being called.

Consider the following C# code in .aspx.cs file that generates vbscript:

protected void AddVbs()
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    sb.Append(GenUtils.VBSCODE("Dim r: r = prepareReport(reportView,\"" + reportName +
    "\",\"" + getReportId("mainReport",0) + "\"); " +
    " r.titleOf = \"Report - standard view"; r.instance = 0; 'here is a comment "));
}

protected void AddVbs()
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    sb.Append(GenUtils.VBSCODE("Dim z04526a1d1b: z04526a1d1b = z9c6e26c932(zda80ab51a2,\"" + reportName +
    "\",\"" + getReportId("mainReport",0) + "\"); " +
    " z04526a1d1b.z018b3115a6 = \"Report - standard view\"; z04526a1d1b.z0d2e08cd5a = (&h309+1231-&H7d8); ));
}

The commandline used was:

vbs-obfus -E othercode,dynamic-scripts-by=GenUtils.VBSCODE impl1.aspx.cs

This allows users to create complex projects consisting of files with VBScript, files with HTML markup and client-side VBScript code in them, and some raw server-side code files (like Java or C# or C++) that refer to client-side code defined elsewhere, and the names of all symbols will be changed in the same way.

Due to the unique ability to extract symbols from html files (that allows the extraction of the ids of html elements and names of form fields) and the unique ability to extract all symbols exported by a given ActiveX or OCX control — not available with any other products — the preparation process is as short as possible.

• prefixing symbol: listOfCustomers becomes; MyPrefix_listOfCustomers — great for debugging, since all error messages allow instant recovery of the symbol in the input file that caused the problem;
• using md5 sum with user-specified "salt": sample replacement is zd7b6a02ec5;
• using combinations of characters from a user-specified set: e.g. if set is "l" and "I" (i.e. capital 'i' and small 'L'), then names like "lIIlllIl" will be generated;
• shortest symbol name possible (great for minimizing output size) - so-called VBScript compression mode.

All these ways (called "symbol name obfuscators" or "symbol manglers" in documentation ), except the first one (listOfCustomers-> MyPrefix_listOfCustomers) are irreversible. This guarantees that obfuscated VBScript is unrecoverable and difficult to analyze.

All "symbolname manglers" can be applied to VBScript Protection Projects consisting of an arbitrary number of files.

Mapping between original and replacement symbol names is stored along with the project so that the original name of a symbol can always be recalled.

Users have the option to specify symbol replcement.

Users have the option to list symbols that shouldn't be renamed (can be file specific). Strictly speaking, there are 2 types of such lists: ones in which symbols are checked case-sensitive, and others in which symbols are checked case-insensitive. Users can also define lists of suffixes that should be kept in symbols as-is (so everything before the suffix is mangled, while keeping suffix) — eg - if _onClick is in the list of suffixes to keep and md5 symbolname mangler is active, then openBtn_onClick it will be replaced with something like zd8ac37d6e_onClick, A symbols for standard interfaces used by VBScript are shipped with ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder. User can easliy disable some of the exceptions in these shipped lists by designating some symbols as "antiexceptions" (these also can also be specified for each VBScript file in the project).

There is an option to store a symbol map as a comment inside the protected version of each file.

Files with HTML markup in which VBScript scripts are to be obfuscated can contain SSI (supported by IIS and Apache), ASP, ASP.NET and PHP fragments in them at any location - inside scripts (even inside string constants of the script!), inside event handlers and inside html markup (i.e. between < and >) - this feature is available only in ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder.

Values of internalName attributes inside WSC files are obfuscated automatically.

A special stand-alone utility to extract names and ids of form fields and other elements is also included with ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder. It is invoked automatically for files of VBScript Protection Project that are declared as files from whcih ids and names of form fields are to be extracted.

Also if client-side VBScript code is output by any server-side language (e.g. ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP, C/C++ or Perl), then the pieces of VBScript code can be obfuscated inside the strings that are arguments of the desired method calls of the server-side language (i.e. ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder can modify any server-side language too!).

The arguments of those methods can include expressions that compute pieces of VBScript code using any operators and calls of other functions and methods; but only strings will be treated as VBScript code and their content will be obfuscated.

More information and samples are available in the manual.

In case some of the input files are changed, users can reprotect and redeploy only that file, without the need to reprotect entire VBScript project.

ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder also has support for code that uses eval() or any other statement that uses string containing names of variables or methods. Once properly marked up (by splitting the string into an expression that joins parts of the string and turning parts that contain only the name of variables or methods into calls of a special function), names of variables and functions in the string will be obfuscated properly. This allows the obfuscated VBScript code to work as the original. This functionality was first introduced in ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder among all obfuscators for VBScript. This manual "markup" gives 100% stability accross project rebuilds and is much more useful than automatic guesswork performed by other obfuscators for VBScript.

If VBScript code contained in a string is too complex to split into parts by a programmer, users can use the unique feature of ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder - the ability to obfuscate dynamic VBScript code. More information and samples on obfuscation of dynamic VBScript code are available in the manual.

All names and semantics of commandline options are convenient and intuitive and follow GNU recommendations, forms in GUI are also easy to use and understand.

To get an idea of how many options are available, please view the online demo .

Key internal parameters of VBScript encoding already depend on random values so the encoded version of the same file will be different on each run. Developers just have to run ASP and VBScript Obfuscator and Encoder to produce file specific to each customer.

Users have an option to list symbols that shouldn't be renamed (such list can be attached to each file individually). Strictly speaking, there are 2 types of lists, ones in which symbols are checked case-sensitive, and others in which symbols are checked case-insensitive. Users can also define lists of suffixes that should be kept in symbols as-is (so everything before the suffix is mangled, while keeping suffix the same) — that is if _onClick is in the list of such suffixes to keep and md5 symbolname mangler is active, then openBtn_onClick it will be replaced with something like zd8ac37d6e_onClick, User can easliy disable some of the exceptions in these shipped lists by designating some symbols as "antiexceptions" (these also can also be specified for each VBScript file in the project).

Due to the unique ability to extract symbols from html files (that allows the extaction of the ids of html elements and names of form fields) and the unique ability to extract all symbols expored by a given ActiveX or OCX control — not available with any other products — the generation of custom lists of exceptions is easy, fast and almost fully automated.