Hmm... Randi yes someone could break into the executable as you suggested possibly.
The problem would be that if the person knew what the score was on screen, then they could trace (step-through) the executable and find out which part changed that variable (ie. get the memory address of the variable). They could then change it to a much higher value and the magic screen would come up.
As for the emailing DLL someone could potentially set a breakpoint on the entrypoint and get the parameters for it.
However, I can assure you that it is not "dead easy" - someone would have to know what they were doing.
Just a few ideas to make life a little more secure:
- Just make sure that the number cannot be incremented unless points are scored (ie. when you set the score keep another variable copy of it and check the two)
- Between you and Raven devise some simple encryption for the emailer DLL perhaps
Remember that secure encryption is not very hard at all... most crackers DO NOT actually break the encryption, they either get the program to record the variable they are after somewhere accessible before encryption or (but not applicable in your case), they let the program do the decryption but they hack into the program afterwards to extract the decrypted data.
Van-B: Only the media is encrypted, I am pretty sure that the actual executable is not encrypted. Even if it was then it has to be decrypted at some point - at which time ProcDump could be used to dump the unencrypted version (yes there are ways of preventing this but I very much doubt DBS used them as they are pretty advanced involving runtime modification of the executable initalisation code and overwriting the DLL references ... but I am digressing
)
@Raven - Yes I am sure there are plenty of holes you will be able to pick in what I have just said
- So I have donned my asbestos jacket
NOBODY has a forum name as stupid as Darth Shader. I do.