Anti Debugger

Protection ID: anti_debug

This protection prevents the application from being debugged or profiled.

This protection is available in the editions:

Scale Enterprise Admits © Smart Integrity Protection System

How It Works

Anti-debugger protection employs various techniques to detect if a debugger is attached to your application. When a debugger is detected, the protection will either terminate the application or trigger custom anti-debugging behavior.

This protection helps prevent reverse engineering by making it difficult to run the application in a debugger, which is typically the first step attackers take to understand how an application works. It can detect both managed debuggers like Visual Studio and unmanaged/native debugging tools.

Parameters

This protection has no parameters or settings.

Rules configuration

• shield.config.json

{
  "protections": {
    "anti_debug": {}
  }
}

Modes

The configuration of the modes is only available in the Enterprise edition.

• Safe default : Detect a debugger or profiler using the managed API.

• Win32 : Detect a debugger or profiler using native Windows API. It is only compatible with the Microsoft Windows operating system.

• © Smart Integrity Protection System : It uses native functions for detection and disables the use of the application when a debugger is detected.

Code Example

• Anti-debugging code detection:

// Simple anti-debugging check
public bool IsDebuggerPresent()
{
    // This will be replaced with Shield's advanced anti-debugging techniques
    if (System.Diagnostics.Debugger.IsAttached)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Debugger detected!");
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

• After protection:

The anti-debugging protection adds complex checks throughout your application code. These checks are not visible in a single method, but instead work at the assembly level to detect debugging attempts and prevent successful debugging sessions.

Exclusions

• Exclude with attribute

Include this attribute in your source code:

[Obfuscation(Exclude = false, Feature = "-anti_debug")]

• Exclude from the interface

You can exclude this protection from methods or classes you want using the Shield configuration interface.

When to Use

Anti-debugger protection is most effective when:

• Licensing validation: Protecting code that validates licenses or trial periods
• Security-critical algorithms: Algorithms handling authentication, encryption, or other security features
• Intellectual property: Applications containing valuable proprietary logic
• Production builds: Release builds that will be distributed to end-users

Use caution or avoid anti-debugger protection when:

• Development builds: Do not apply this protection to debug builds or you won't be able to debug your own code

Compatibility

Shield is compatible with all versions of .NET. It automatically adapts to your specific framework, whether you're using .NET 2.0, .NET 4.7, .NET Core 2.1, or Xamarin.Forms 5.0.