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What is a software IP protection solution?
Software IP protection solutions are tools and strategies used to secure your company’s software. They prevent license abuse via cracks, software IP breaches and tampering while ensuring license compliance. Together, these solutions protect code from unauthorized access, prevent revenue loss from piracy or misuse, and ensure you remain in control of your brand reputation and competitive differentiators.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is intellectual property protection for software relevant to my organization?
Software IP Protection is crucial for your organization because it helps prevent others, including competitors, from reverse engineering your software and obtain algorithms, functionality, and design, to use for their own gain. Without protection, your organization risks losing its technological edge if others exploit your innovations. Additionally, if someone modifies your software, it could be released in a substandard form, damaging its performance and harming your brand’s reputation in the market. By securing your software’s intellectual property, you safeguard your innovations, preserve your competitive advantage, and protect your brand from these risks.
What is reverse engineering of software?
Reverse engineering of software is the process of analyzing a software program to understand how it works, typically by breaking it down into its core components, such as its source code, structure, or algorithms. The goal is to deduce the design, functionality, and logic of the software without access to its original source code or documentation.
What is software piracy?
Software piracy is the unauthorized use, reproduction, distribution, or installation of software. It includes activities like copying software without a valid license, sharing it without permission, or using counterfeit versions. Piracy undermines the rights of software developers, leads to lost revenue, and can introduce security risks for users. Software piracy protection is used to avoid this.
What is the difference between software IP Protection and copy protection?
While software IP protection focuses on safeguarding the algorithms embedded in the software's code, copy protection is a technique that prevents unauthorized use or distribution of the software without proper rights or licenses.
Why is an interpreted language such as .NET or .Java or .Python more subject to reverse engineering attacks?
Interpreted languages like .NET, Java, and Python are more susceptible to reverse engineering attacks because of the nature of their execution process and the way their code is stored and run.
Are native languages safe against reverse engineering?
Native languages, such as C or C++, are generally harder to reverse engineer than interpreted languages (like .NET, Java, or Python), but they are not immune to reverse engineering. While they offer more resistance due to the way they are compiled into machine code, skilled attackers with the right tools can still reverse engineer native code.
Does a EULA (End User License Agreement) protect software IP?
The licensing agreement, or the EULA (End-User-License-Agreement) provides legal protection over your IP. It includes terms of use that usually forbid unauthorized copying or distribution. But this protection does not enforce restrictions. For example, if you sell your software with an EULA, nothing stops someone with malicious intent from reverse-engineering your code and stealing your IP.
Top-tier IP protection solutions like those offered by Thales Sentinel are designed to safeguard software intellectual property. Methodologies like encryption, code obfuscation, application hardening, cryptography, anti-debugging, data file protection, and license checks come together to prevent code tampering and protect algorithms.
Why it is important to consider software IP Protection for AI?
Software IP protection is crucial to AI as it ensures that AI technologies are legally safeguarded, preserving the value of innovations and protecting against unauthorized use or duplication. Proper software IP protection prevents competitors from copying or misusing proprietary AI models and algorithms, secures sensitive data, and enables companies to control licensing and enforce their rights effectively. This not only maintains competitive advantage but also fosters ongoing innovation and ethical use of AI technologies.
How does software IP protection differ when selling software outright, licensing on-premises software, and licensing SaaS solutions?
Selling software transfers IP ownership to the buyer. Whether intentionally or not, the provider relinquishes control over the software and any changes or modifications made to it.
Selling software with a license allows you to retain ownership of the IP while granting users access under specific terms. This model is central when selling either on-premises solutions or cloud-based software as a service (SaaS). For on-premises software sold with a license, ownership remains with the provider, while the buyer can install and use the software within agreed terms. This allows the provider to retain control over their IP, compared to outright sales.
In SaaS, users pay for access to cloud-hosted software, and licensing and entitlement technology enables providers to control usage, enforce compliance, and manage subscription-based revenue, enables access to specific product bundles.
Distributing Software Applications Without Protection Puts You at Risk
Distributing software applications with exposed code puts your revenue and reputation at risk. From targeted cracks and software piracy, to reverse engineering and unauthorized modifications, your code and algorithms need protection.
Keep your software – and your business – secure.
Rely on Thales Sentinel to protect your software and stop intentional misuse and inadvertent non-compliance.
white paper
Defending Against The Quadruple Threat to Intellectual Property
Application security is the hardest of all projects that companies try to achieve in-house. Read this comprehensive guide to get a better understanding of all the risks associated with poorly-protected code. Explore the best practices to safeguard your software, algorithms, and AI models.
Protecting Over
$52B
Annual Revenue
We’re proud to be the go-to choice for software protection, trusted by organizations around the globe. From startups to global enterprises, our customers rely on Sentinel to keep their software, licenses, data, and algorithms secure. Take a look at these case studies to see real world examples.
Sectors We Protect
Software and Tech
Artificial Intelligence
Manufacturing and IoT
Government and Defense
Finance and Banking
Medtech
Software IP Protection That’s Easy to Apply. Nearly Impossible to Crack.
Thales’s cutting-edge suite of tools includes advanced encryption, code obfuscation, anti-debugging, data file protection, tamper detection, license checks, and more. These security layers give you the industry's most sophisticated solution in a simple to implement tool.
Protect Code, Algorithms, & Files
Your software IP is the backbone of your innovation. But if your product is deployed on the edge or on-premises, your software is highly exposed. Your IP could be cracked, extracted, poisoned, or stolen and used in other solutions — with devastating consequences. You could lose your competitive advantage, expose your business to security breaches, and become incompliant with critical regulations.
Solve it with:
Executable and Library Encryption | Method- and Class-level Encryption | Code and Symbol Obfuscation | Anti-Debugging & Anti-Tracing | Tamper Detection | Key Disabling | On-Chip Code Execution | Integrity Checks
Prevent Software Piracy
Pirated versions of software in the marketplace limit your profitability. What’s more, illegally copied software is often bundled with malware, which harms users and damages your reputation. Our industry-leading software piracy prevention solution ensures that even if someone tries to crack your application and sell it without authorization, they won’t succeed.
Solve it with:
All technologies mentioned above +
License Term Enforcement | Secure Communication Channel | White Box Cryptography | Fingerprinting and Clone Protection | Digitally signed Licenses | Time Tampering Detection | Data File Protection
License Term Enforcement | Secure Communication Channel | White Box Cryptography | Fingerprinting and Clone Protection | Digitally signed Licenses | Time Tampering Detection | Data File Protection
Keep Your Honest Customers Honest
Even well-intentioned customers can accidentally overuse their licenses, impacting both revenue and legal aspects of your business. Our technology ensures your customers comply with their license agreements. We also offer portals for your customers to manage and track their own license consumption.
Solve it with:
License Terms: Hard limits, Soft Limits, or Grace Periods | License Transferring | Limit Alerts
Secure AI Models
Protect Your AI Functionality, Credibility, and Trustworthiness Across Any Deployment
AI deployed in end-user environments — on an edge device, end user’s private cloud, or on-premises — are far more exposed to the risk of reverse engineering compared to cloud-based deployments. They require a unique protection solution. Thales’s AI model security starts with protecting the application and extends to encrypting the model, giving you comprehensive application integrity assurance and preventing model poisoning and theft.
Secure Long-Term Growth by Protecting Your Code, Revenue, and Brand
Revenue Protection
Preserve Your Bottom Line
Unprotected software opens the door to piracy, unauthorized distribution, and illegal usage, allowing non-paying users to benefit from your hard work and allowing competitors to leapfrog over your innovations. Make sure only licensed and paying customers can access and use your software so you can capture all your revenue potential.
Code Protection
Safeguard Your Secret Sauce
Your software’s proprietary code is the core of your product’s unique value. Without strong IP protection, competitors or hackers could reverse-engineer your code, stealing algorithms and features that differentiate your solution. Robust code protection strategies keep your secret sauce secret.
Brand Protection
Build a Reputation of Trust
If altered versions of your software reach the market, users could face poor performance, unpredictable behavior, and security risks. You may also risk noncompliance with the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act and other industry standards. Ensure only authentic versions of your software are distributed to protect your reputation.
Strike the Right Balance Between Security and Accessibility
Restrictive IP protection software may impact legitimate users, while insufficient protection leaves software vulnerable to piracy and unauthorized use. Thales specializes in helping every software vendor find the right software IP protection solution for their unique product offering.
Consultative Approach
Applicable For All Business Sizes
Secure Across All Deployment Types
