Uninformed: Informative Information for the Uninformed

Vol 9» 2008.Jan


An Objective Analysis of the Lockdown Protection System for Battle.net
Skywing
Near the end of 2006, Blizzard deployed the first major update to the version check and client software authentication system used to verify the authenticity of clients connecting to Battle.net using the binary game client protocol. This system had been in use since just after the release of the original Diablo game and the public launch of Battle.net. The new authentication module (Lockdown) introduced a variety of mechanisms designed to raise the bar with respect to spoofing a game client when logging on to Battle.net. In addition, the new authentication module also introduced run-time integrity checks of client binaries in memory. This is meant to provide simple detection of many client modifications (often labeled "hacks") that patch game code in-memory in order to modify game behavior. The Lockdown authentication module also introduced some anti-debugging techniques that are designed to make it more difficult to reverse engineer the module. In addition, several checks that are designed to make it difficult to simply load and run the Blizzard Lockdown module from the context of an unauthorized, non-Blizzard-game process. After all, if an attacker can simply load and run the Lockdown module in his or her own process, it becomes trivially easy to spoof the game client logon process, or to allow a modified game client to log on to Battle.net successfully. However, like any protection mechanism, the new Lockdown module is not without its flaws, some of which are discussed in detail in this paper.
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