Organizations Need to Better Understand Risk of Source Code Extraction

BOSTON, Microsoft Tech Ed Booth #1003 - June 13, 2006

Three out of four technologists believe their management team would alter risk and control policies if management better understood their exposure to source code extraction, according to a new survey released today by PreEmptive Solutions, suppliers of the leading Enterprise Obfuscation Solution for the Microsoft .NET Framework-based environment and Java. The survey queried over 300 corporations on source code access control practices and policies.

"We surveyed over 300 companies across industries to assess general awareness of the risks that stem from uncontrolled source distribution and the controls to manage these risks," said Gabriel Torok, President of PreEmptive Solutions. "What shocked us most was the significant gap in understanding between management and technologists within the same organizations."

Key findings of the survey include:

• 75% of those surveyed felt that if their senior management would amend their security controls if they were more aware of the risks associated with distributing unobfuscated applications

• Seven percent felt that management would actually suspend Java and .NET Framework-based development until proper controls were in place.

• Organizations identified the primary risks that stem from uncontrolled access to source via .NET Framework and Java binaries to be Intellectual Property (IP) loss (35 percent), application vulnerability exposure (25 percent) and loss of revenue through license circumvention (20 percent).

• Only 9 percent of those surveyed felt that there was no risk at all.

Torok continued, "This gap in understanding is particularly troubling when you consider that there are over 500,000 users who have downloaded free reverse engineering tools. Source code extraction is a common practice for support, education and debugging work - it is so easy to do that it is no longer just for the 'bad guys'; it has become a mainstream practice."

About PreEmptive Solutions
Founded in 1996 with a mission to protect and increase application value, PreEmptive launched the Dotfuscator and DashO obfuscation families. With over 2,500 corporate clients, 30,000 registered installations in 100+ countries and bundling into Microsoft's 6,000,000+ Visual Studio seats, PreEmptive Solutions is the undisputed market leader and the clear choice for every organization that is serious about source code protection, application security and IT governance. To learn more, email solutions@preemptive.com or call +1 216 732 5895

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