Obfuscation deliberately complicates code or data to hinder analysis.
Techniques
- Packing — compression/encryption (UPX, custom packers).
- Junk code — dead instructions between real ones.
- Virtualisation — replace instructions with custom VM bytecode (VMP, Themida).
Deobfuscation
x64dbg OEP finding, Scylla dump, Ghidra scripting.