AntiVirus Obfuscation

AntiVirus Obfuscation

This feature is automatically enabled for all applications.

Why we've added AntiVirus Obfuscation

Occasionally "hackers" purchase Thinstall using stolen credit cards and then use it to release their virus & Trojan horses. When this happens sometimes anti-virus companies mistakenly add virus-signatures that identify all Thinstall created EXEs as being a virus rather than adding a definition that only identifies that one virus. On Feb 24th 2004, such a case occurred with Norton (Symantec) AntiVirus and again with Kaspersky Lab's on March 9th 2004. We were able to get both companies to correct their virus definitions the same day. To prevent future headaches for developers using Thinstall we've added AntiVirus obfuscation which makes it nearly impossible to create a virus definition that matches all Thinstall EXEs.

If you work for an anti-virus company and want technical information on how to identify virus packaged with Thinstall please email info@thinstall.com

AntiVirus Obfuscation generates unique "boot-strap" code for every executable. These generated instructions decrypt the remainder of the Thinstall loader. Thinstall uses a hash of your license key to encrypt both the boot-strap loader and data used by Thinstall during the loading process. This means:

1.	All code bytes in Thinstall EXEs built using different license keys will be completely different.

2.	All executables created using the same license key will have the same virus signature.

3.	We can determine which license key was used to release a virus. When we receive notice of Thinstall packaged virus/trojan from Norton or McAfee we will immediately take the following actions:

Disable the license key used to make the virus/trojan and the license key owner will be permanantly black listed our company.

Notify other virus companies of how to detect EXE files built using said license key and mark them as viruses.

Note: Although your license key is used to encrypt data, no part of your license key can be recovered by a 3rd party or Anti-Virus company.

AntiVirus Obfuscation protects you

AntiVirus Obfuscation eliminates almost all possibility that your software will be accidentally identified as a virus.

AntiVirus Obfuscation makes it difficult for a software cracker to identify you are using Thinstall, since it is difficult to detect Thinstall packaged EXE by searching for a byte signature.

AntiVirus Obfuscation makes it difficult for a software cracker to debug Thinstall EXEs since the code is almost completely encrypted and randomly generated.