FlexNet Licensing’s Innovative Tamper-resistant Licensing Creates “Ring of Defense” Around Applications to Substantially Increase Security Against Hacker Theft

Flexera Software sets new bar for software license security, helping software vendors and intelligent device manufacturers protect their intellectual property and reduce revenue leakage

Maidenhead, UK – December 9, 2014 Flexera Software, provider of next-generation software licensing, compliance and installation solutions for application producers and enterprises, announced enhancements to FlexNet Licensing, the software licensing solution within the company’s market-leading software monetisation suite for software vendors and intelligent device manufacturers. FlexNet Licensing now empowers producers to erect a “Ring of Defense” around their software applications with best-in class tamper resistance, code obfuscation and tamper detection.
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. “The amount of revenue illegally being siphoned away from producers due to unauthorised software use is staggering,” said Mathieu Baissac, Vice President of Product Management at Flexera Software. “Today’s hackers are extremely sophisticated and relentless, leaving vulnerable the application producers that fail to implement the latest security measures. FlexNet Licensing offers best-in-class, multi-faceted, patent-pending tamper resistance to ward off hackers, allowing producers to better guard their intellectual property, protect revenues, and focus on their core competencies.”

Ring of Defense: Resistance, Obfuscation and Detection
FlexNet Licensing’s Ring of Defense, tamper-resistance strategy is analogous to fortifying a home against burglary by making it significantly more difficult to gain entry and steal what’s inside
•   Resistance – Adding a “Moat” Around Software: FlexNet Licensing establishes a secure barrier around the software – a moat – making illegal entry by hackers significantly more difficult by preventing debugging and application signature spoofing – techniques hackers undertake 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 – the “front door.” FlexNet Licensing hides strings, variables and functions that control the flow of software and application data, which may contain sensitive information, making it significantly more difficult for hackers to find the code logic and gain illegal entry.
•   Detection – Adding “Motion Sensors” and “Alarms” Signaling Intrusion: FlexNet Licensing helps ensure application integrity and maximise protection against binary tampering through innovative techniques that detect when hackers try to modify the application in memory and on disk. It also provides “call-home” notification alerts – effectively detecting unauthorised intrusion within the application and sounding the alarm to notify the producer of the illegal intrusion.

Enhanced Virtualisation and Cloud Support
Today’s release also provides enhancements to better enable producers to support their applications in the cloud and other virtualised environments. New Microsoft Virtual Machine Generation ID helps producers detect cloning and ensure that their customers stay in compliance in virtual environments that leverage Microsoft Virtual Machine Generation ID. With this support, producers can choose to prevent cloning of their software, or implement licensing models to monetise cloning when it does occur. Other enhancements include the ability to detect and deny running in a virtual environment.
Among other things these virtualisation protections prevent virtual machine cloning, minimising accidental out-of-compliance issues during datacenter moves from physical to virtual infrastructures. Supported hypervisors include VMware ESX/ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer for clone detection on Windows and detection of Oracle Virtual Box and Parallels hypervisor.
Moreover, as a result of a collaboration recently announced between Microsoft and Flexera Software, application producers can now also leverage FlexNet Licensing to seamlessly execute their premise-born applications in Microsoft Azure. This empowers producers to increase market share by capturing revenue from customers shifting their priorities to cloud-based solutions, and capture additional revenue streams by attracting new customers through a variety of usage models that align to different demand scenarios, such as burst of use, minutes of use, and the like.