SOFTWARE LICENSING

Metaforic Debuts Security Hardening for FlexNet Software

The software industry, worldwide, is marked by aggressive competition, with rival firms and hackers always ready to reverse engineer the successful applications of competitors, stealing valuable assets and revenue streams. To combat this, companies often seek to “harden” their software codes, converting executable code into a format that makes reverse engineering extremely difficult, while preserving the operability of the software itself.

Metaforic, a provider of anti-theft and anti-tampering software hardening, announced that it had completed a thorough security hardening of Flexera FlexNet enabled software. With software solutions hardened against the corruption and hackers and attempted theft by rivals, software developers are free to realize the full return on their investment through licensing. Security hardening of FlexNet solutions will mitigate attempts to evade licensing requirements, boosting revenues and increasing the operating margin for current FlexNet customers.

"The software industry continues to suffer massive losses due to piracy, in excess of $59 billion, as evidenced by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) study. These losses continue to escalate and have nearly doubled in real terms since 2003,” Suresh Balasubramanian, an anti-piracy expert and leading licensing revenue recovery specialist, commented in a company statement. “Technology solutions that can provide strong protection while maintaining smooth customer experience go a long way in helping reduce the impact of such losses to software publishers. FlexNet has thousands of software publisher customers who could benefit from this additional strengthening of protection."

FlexNet’s licensing management solutions work to reduce the process of enabling software licenses for legitimate customers. FlexNet’s solutions offer entitlement management and tracking features to organizations. With Metaforic’s security hardening, FlexNet’s licensing code significantly less accessible to hackers and others who would attempt to tamper with the license. Metaforic’s MetaFortress solution provides a tamper resistant code to resist corruption. When MetaFortress detects an attempt to modify FlexNet solutions’ licenses, MetaFortress will respond quickly to stop the tampering.

"FlexNet is a powerful product that delivers significant value to its customers, but primarily keeps honest users honest. With the seamless addition of MetaFortress, a number of FlexNet customers have now been able to significantly reduce piracy and misuse. This capability is something I always wanted to be able to provide my customers when I ran FlexNet, and I'm happy to be in a position to finally be able to do so," said Dan Stickel, Metaforic CEO, and former executive responsible for FlexNet, in a company statement.