PreEmptive is doing its part to help the Vancouver Winter Olympics go off smoothly.

February 19, 2010 4012 Views Gabriel Torok

Online viewers of the Vancouver Olympics on NBCOlympics.com are using Silverlight based video and photo viewers delivering full HD quality content for viewers and helping content owners monetize their content. I am pleased to say that Dotfuscator had a hand in all of this innovation providing both protection and optimization for the high performing video player at the heart the NBC online Olympic experience.

For an overall description of the Silverlight solution, see: http://team.silverlight.net/events/let-the-games-begin/

For Microsoft’s own description of the role of partners (including us of course), see: http://team.silverlight.net/customer-evidence/vancouver-olympics-ndash-how-rsquo-d-we-do-that/

The development teams especially appreciated the fact that Dotfuscator can accept and output XAP files (instead of low level DLLs that force developers to manually edit XAP files). This shortens and simplifies the release process – and was critical for an event like the Olympics.

On an unrelated Silverlight note, I was pleased to see David Kelly’s recent blog entry . This Silverlight MVP has identified Dotfuscator’s Silverlight analytics as “a critical tool in your tool Silverlight toolbox.” Good Stuff.

Tools don’t hack apps, hackers do: Securing Android apps against Frida

Search for lockpicking and you’ll see that there’s no shortage of suppliers ready to serve locksmiths and hobbyists, each community having a perfectly legitimate need. Is there any reason to believe that burglars don’t shop the same sites?

Hackers are developers and they have a long history of enthusiastically embracing and adapting development (and DevOps) innovations to speed their work, extend their reach, and ship software – the only difference is that they’re more likely to use those development tools and platforms on YOUR software rather than on their own. Static code analysis tools, debuggers, and even public bug tracking databases are all go-to hacker resources.

Can you tell the difference? Exception or the norm?

Of course, everyone is “for security” in principle. The hard question that each organization has to answer for themselves is “how much is enough?” Over-engineering is (by definition) excessive, and over-engineering application security can, in fact, be devastating as overly-complex algorithms, architectures and processes can compromise user experience, degrade performance and slow development velocity. On the other hand, punishment is swift for organizations that cut corners and do not effectively secure their applications, their data and, most importantly their users and business stakeholders. Finding and maintaining that balance can be time consuming and, because you can never be sure you’ve gotten it exactly right, it can also be a thankless job.

JavaScript is everywhere. It’s currently the world’s most popular programming language; as noted by GitHub, JavaScript has the highest number of contributors and repositories, handily outpacing other alternatives such as Python, PHP and Ruby.

The problem with all this popularity? Massive amounts of great open-source code create opportunities for both in-house development teams and malicious actors. The sheer volume of JavaScript-based services means it’s not enough just design apps with security in mind — businesses must actively mitigate emerging threats by obfuscating critical code to frustrate hacker efforts.

Not sure where to start? Here’s what you need to know about the brewing storm of JavaScript attacks and the simplest ways to reduce your total risk.

Over a year ago we wrote instructions for migrating from ProGuard or DexGuard to DashO. Since that time, Google introduced R8, fundamentally changing the Android build process. Now, we have released PreEmptive Protection DashO for Android & Java, version 10.0 with a new Android Mode that is designed to work with R8. With this release, migrating from ProGuard or DexGuard to DashO is so simple that it almost doesn't need instructions - so we're posting new instructions to make that clear!

Welcome to our new instructions!

Before we begin, let's make sure we're all on the same page. We assume you are currently:

We are proud to announce the public release of PreEmptive Protection DashO for Android & Java v10.0, the next major version of DashO, our powerful Android & Java obfuscation and app protection product.

This release has major changes to our Android support. We've blogged about R8 and Google's build architecture changes before, and this new version of DashO works together with R8 to protect Android apps and libraries. R8 does what it is best at: minification (renaming & removal) and performance (build and runtime), while DashO provides strong protection: Control Flow, String Encryption, and runtime Checks for Tamper, Debug, Root, Emulators, and more. Together you get the best of both worlds.

To accomplish this new integration, we rethought DashO from the ground up, creating a brand new Android Mode with big changes to UI, build-time behaviors, and the way DashO integrates into a Gradle build. It's DashO unlike you've ever known it: even easier to integrate, easier to understand and configure, and easier to keep up to date as your code and Android evolve.

PreEmptive is doing its part to help the Vancouver Winter Olympics go off smoothly.

Tools don’t hack apps, hackers do: Securing Android apps against Frida

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Can you tell the difference? Exception or the norm?

No Beans About It: Why You Need JavaScript Obfuscation

Migrating from ProGuard or DexGuard to DashO - Updated!

DashO 10: Android support, rebuilt from the ground up

Latest Blog Posts

Tools don’t hack apps, hackers do: Securing Android apps against Frida

Trusted Computing: Panacea or Magical Thinking?

No Beans About It: Why You Need JavaScript Obfuscation

Migrating from ProGuard or DexGuard to DashO - Updated!

DashO 10: Android support, rebuilt from the ground up

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