The common use of packers is a real challenge for the anti-virus community. Indeed, a static signature analysis can usually only detect and sometimes remove known packers if a specific unpacking routine has been programmed manually. Generic unpacking does not solve the problem due to its limited effectiveness. Additionally, the important number of binaries to scan on a daily basis makes automated analysis necessary in order to protect information systems. In this context, we propose a taxonomy of self-modifying behaviors, a generic method to detect them in potentially malicious samples and a scalable architecture for the distributed analysis of a high volume of binaries.