Many companies invest great sums of money and manpower into creating and licensing software. In today’s world, even the best software won’t succeed if it doesn’t have a software security system in place. Software security is critical for making sure that your software is used how you planned, by the users who have purchased licenses and in the appropriate manner. If revenue generation and organizational efficiency are important to your business (as they should be), emphasizing software security is a must.
Software security is making sure your software is safe, in every aspect of the word. The best software security practices begin in the design phase. Software developers will add various features to their software, in the creation phase, to avoid the software being hacked and used maliciously. This proactive approach aims to mitigate problems in the future by introducing software security tools and features within the software program itself.
Software security solutions allow you to monetize your software. After all, this is the goal of every company, to create revenue and value efficiently and effectively. Take a look at our Software Monetization Overview video here to understand how having a comprehensive security package will help your company and keep your secrets, and software, safe.
The answer is quite simple: protecting your software will keep it in the right hands for the right use. This will, in turn, create more revenue for your company and allow you to analyze, examine and understand your users better.
There are multiple reasons why having the proper software security standards in place are important:
Copy protection is an effort to stop software from being copied by implementing software security systems and standards. Copy protection is also used in anti-piracy attempts by software companies.
Various strategies are used to try and guarantee that the software won’t be copied. Many software programs require users to register when accessing the software for the first time in order to prove that the software was purchased correctly and legally. This includes entering a name and serial number, phone activation or a device ID (to ensure that the software is installed on one device or however many are allowed).
Copy Protection is closely related to anti-piracy efforts. Anti-piracy is an effort to reduce copyright infringement and intellectual property offenses. After investing so much in your software, intellectual property protection is critical to keeping your software safe and in the right hands. There are various methods of software piracy including softlifting, uploading and downloading software incorrectly or maliciously, counterfeiting, renting and more. Check out more about software protection here.
Illegal software distribution is just that, when people distribute your software illegally, against the licensing terms and agreements.
This is problematic for various reasons. Firstly, illegal software distribution shows that you have software security issues within your software or licensing system. Properly built software and licensing systems should have measures in place in order to stop illegal software distribution.
If users are distributing software illegally, your company is also inevitably losing revenue and profits. Every user who uses your software illegally isn’t paying for it. This is a problem both with individual users as well as company’s who may install software not as directed or hack into features that they haven’t paid for.
Software security also includes making sure that users aren’t able to breach their licenses on your software products. Breach of licensing means that users are using licensing incorrectly or maliciously. Sometimes these breaches may even be unintentional, however, they are still problematic.
Licenses have clear agreements and users who use licenses differently than is stated in the agreement are considering to be breaching the license. This could refer to who is supposed to use the license (developers vs. distributors), geographic location and, of course, payment for the software. Software security tools are critical to making sure that users are unable to continue using a specific license if used incorrectly.
You’ve created sophisticated software which you surely want to keep in the right hands. Hacking and/or reverse engineering of software are major software security issues. No one wants their software to be hacked or reverse engineered. This is when developers or users try to crack into your software’s code to understand how it works and potentially build similar software themselves.
There are many reasons to make sure that your software security standards are top of the line. Hacking is one of the most important. After all, if you’ve created an amazing software product and others can replicate it through hacking, you’ll be left with little if any, product. All efforts to monetize and break into the market can be lost in these situations.
At Sentinel, our goal is to license, deliver and protect your software. Our software protection products aim to help our customers create and capture revenue opportunities and increase their operational efficiency.
Sentinel RMS, our easy-to-use and flexible licensing management program, allows you to license your software while making sure that your software security is top of the line. By choosing flexible licensing options, you’ll be able to create the ultimate solution for your customers, allowing for maximum revenue opportunities. You’ll also be able to track license use, and most importantly, you can feel 100% confident that your software is safe and being used as intended. Having the right tools at your fingertips will allow you to operate efficiently and therefore bring in more profits.
Sentinel LDK provides a full-scale management system to monetize your software efficiently and comprehensively. As with all of our products, your software security is our number one concern. Sentinel LDK will allow you to maximize revenue by making sure your software is used and distributed as intended while providing an enjoyable experience for your customers.
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