pyprotect: A lightweight python code protector

by do son · July 31, 2018

pyprotect

pyprotect is a lightweight python code protector, makes your python project harder to reverse engineer.

Features

Cross-platform
No need to install any extra dependents
Very easy to use

Only python3.x is supported by current version

How does it work?

Build pyprotect

Download pybind11 library:

Create a directory “deps” in the pyprotect root directory.
Download pybind11 project into the newly created deps directory.
Unzip pybind11 zip file, and change the extracted directory’s name from something like “pybind11-x.x.x” to “pybind11”

git clone https://github.com/ga0/pyprotect.git
Run these commands in the pyprotect root directory:

mkdir build
cd build && cmake .. && make

And you can find libpyprotect.cpython-PYVERSION-PLATFORM.so in the objs directory.

Encrypt your python project

Command:

python encrypt.py -s SCRIPTS_DIR -e ENTRY_POINT_LIST -o OUTPUT_DIR [--exclude EXCLUDED_SCRIPT_LIST]

SCRIPTS_DIR is your python project root directory.
ENTRY_POINT_LIST is a comma-separated list of file function pair which is directly run as the entry point of your programme. For example “app.py:main,test_app.py:run_test”.
OUTPUT_DIR is the destination directory to store the encrypted python scripts.
EXCLUDED_SCRIPT_LIST is a comma-separated list of python scripts which you don’t want to encrypt.

You need to put libpyprotect.cpython-PYVERSION-PLATFORM.so into the OUTPUT_DIR as part of your programme.

Configuration [IMPORTANT]

For security reason, you should change the AES key and IV, which is used to encrypt/decrypt the python scripts, to a stronger value. And you may want to change the file extension of encrypted python scripts (which is “.pye” by default).

You can find these macros or variables in config.h and encrypt.py: