Obfuscation of a software image so as to becloud the comprehension of hackers in reverse engineering pieces of software comprising the software image is provided (402). A process for determining whether the hardware resources, such as the central processing unit or the cache memory on a computing machine, belong to a class for which inhibiting software tampering is possible, is also provided (442). Thread protection inhibits tampering with various threads that execute protective pieces of software (443). Service protection inhibits tampering by allowing various unauthorized services to execute (407). Installation setup protection inhibits tampering during the installation of various pieces of software (202). Hardware protection prevents hackers from forcing various pieces of software from running on unauthorized pieces of hardware (3B).