System and method for protecting plain text scripting language programs in a mainframe rehosting platform

Abstract

In accordance with an embodiment, described herein is a system and method for protecting a scripting language application in a computing environment. An encryption-decryption module in the computing environment can use a native encryption-decryption library to encrypt the application. The encrypted application can be installed in an environment specific to a user of the computing environment. At runtime, the encryption-decryption module can use the native encryption-decryption library to decrypt the encrypted application into plain text statements, and store them into a memory buffer. The encryption-decryption module can further create a pipe, and fork a child process. The child process can call a scripting language engine, which can read the plain text statements from the memory buffer through the pipe, and execute the plain text statements. Once the execution is completed, the encryption-decryption module can be terminated, thereby clearing the data in the memory buffer.