Help Minimize Piracy Risk and Maximize Revenue with Additional Security Layer Protection

1. SECURITYBRIEF
Tamper Resistant Application Fortifies
Your Defense Against Hacking
Help Minimize Piracy Risk and Maximize Revenue with Additional Security
Layer Protection

2. Software License Compliance Management: Optimizing Software Revenue and Customer Satisfaction
2
Tamper Resistant Application Fortifies
Your Defense Against Hacking
Help Minimize Piracy Risk and Maximize Revenue with Additional Security
Layer Protection
Today’s hackers are sophisticated, smart and determined.
Software producers remain extremely vulnerable, especially
if they have not implemented the latest security measures.
To help producers fight back, Flexera Software’s enhanced
tamper-resistant application capability provides additional
security layers to fortify and protect the software application
from piracy and thereby reduce revenue leakage.
Tamper Resistant Application: Protection That Goes
Beyond Encryption
Flexera Software’s approach is similar to protecting a home
from burglary in multiple ways:
• Resistance—creating a moat to prevent entry
• Obfuscation—making it difficult to find the front door
• Detection—an alarm provides an alert for
unauthorized entry
This brief offers a deeper look at this important issue and
Flexera Software’s unique approach, including:
• The vulnerability of traditional approaches
• The 3-level tamper-resistant licensing approach
provided by FlexNet Embedded, a component of
FlexNet Licensing
According to a recent
BSA Global Software Survey,
43 percent of the software installed
on PCs around the world, totaling
more than $62 billion in value,
was not properly licensed.
Gaps in Traditional Protection Approaches
In regards to software protection, a binary attack is a
term used to describe malicious code injected into the
application to circumvent licensing. As a result, binary
attack can occur in disk with a disassembler or in memory
while an application is running. The hacker applies a
patch that changes the application storage location and
its behavior. The code requiring license validation before
performing an action is modified, so the application
doesn’t check for licenses or, even worse, looks for the
hacker’s licenses.

3. Software License Compliance Management: Optimizing Software Revenue and Customer Satisfaction
3
Typical approaches to fighting these modifications include
encryption, dongle protection, secure boots, and more.
While effective in less sophisticated times or in certain
specific situations, gaps exist which can expose producers.
• Encryption gap: It offers only one level of protection.
Hackers can find the decryption keys hidden in the
application, which removes all protection. There’s also
a rework impact of rewriting application code when
protection is compromised. Finally, encryption can
significantly impact performance.
• Dongle gap: Dongle protection does not address binary
patching, and determined hackers know how to use
dongle emulators to break dongle protection.
• Secure boots gap: This method protects devices, not
software. Exposure is increasing since the Internet of
Things (IoT) means putting more and more software
on devices.
FlexNet Embedded raises the bar on protection by
approaching the problem in a different way.
A Three-Level Ring of Defense Changes the Game
Instead of one level protection, FlexNet Embedded’s
tamper resistant application approach provides multi-level
protection, enabling creation of a “ring of defense.”
It’s just like fortifying a home against burglary, making it
difficult to enter and steal what’s inside.
• Resistance – Adding a “Moat” Around Software:
FlexNet Embedded establishes a secure barrier
around the software – a moat. It makes illegal entry
significantly more difficult by preventing debugging
and application signature spoofing, foiling the
techniques hackers use to reverse engineer the
application and gain illegal entry.
• Obfuscation – Hiding the “Front Door”: Enhanced code
obfuscation makes it harder for hackers to conduct
static analysis on the application to find an entry
point or the “front door.” FlexNet Embedded hides
strings, variables, and functions that control the flow
of software and application data, which may contain
sensitive information. It increases the difficulty of
finding the code logic and gaining illegal entry.
• Detection – Adding “Motion Sensors” and “Alarms”
Signaling Intrusion: FlexNet Embedded thwarts binary
tampering through innovative techniques that detect
when hackers try to modify the application in memory
and on disk. Optional integration with FlexNet
Connect eliminates the burdensome implementation
task for producers by enabling “call-home” notification
alerts, detecting intrusion within the application and
sounding the alarm to notify the producer.
Ring of Defense Protects Revenue
With this innovative approach, life has become more
difficult for hackers. FlexNet Embedded’s tamper resistant
application approach allows producers to better guard their
intellectual property, protect revenue, and focus on their
core competencies.
About Flexera Software
Flexera Software helps application producers and
enterprises increase application usage and the value they
derive from their software. Our next-generation software
licensing, compliance and installation solutions are essential
to ensure continuous licensing compliance, optimized
software investments and to future-proof businesses against
the risks and costs of constantly changing technology. Over
80,000 customers turn to Flexera Software as a trusted and
neutral source for the knowledge and expertise we have
gained as the marketplace leader for over 25 years and for
the automation and intelligence designed into our products.
For more information, please go to:
www.flexerasoftware.com
Next Steps:
Learn more about how FlexNet Embedded helps
you protect and monetize your applications at
www.flexerasoftware.com/producer/products/software-
monetization/flexnet-licensing/tab/features

4. Flexera Software LLC
(Global Headquarters):
+1 800-809-5659
United Kingdom (Europe,
Middle East Headquarters):
+44 870-871-1111
+44 870-873-6300
Australia (Asia,
Pacific Headquarters):
+61 3-9895-2000
Beijing, China:
+86 10-6510-1566
For more office locations visit:
www.flexerasoftware.com
Copyright © 2014 Flexera Software LLC. All other brand and product names mentioned herein may be the trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.
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