Attackers are always finding new ways to break into your application and use your code to steal your users’ data. That’s why code hardening is essential for any application across any device.
Code hardening is part of a larger strategy called application hardening. It refers to the techniques developers and code security specialists can use to prevent attackers from infiltrating and tampering with the code in an application or program.
As a cybersecurity measure, code hardening is designed to prevent security breaches, software piracy, IP theft, and financial fraud. Any application can use code hardening as a protective measure.
Code tampering from malicious actors and hackers costs companies millions of dollars each year—therefore, code hardening is a more important security measure than ever. Since prevention costs far less than damage remediation, we always recommend using multiple methods to harden your code.
Every application has vulnerable points that a potential attacker could use to infiltrate it and steal your data—or your clients’ data. Using software hardening allows you to eliminate possible entry points an attacker can use.
As a result, it will be much easier for your team to understand how attackers might break into your app so it’s more challenging to penetrate.
Most user-facing applications process thousands of pieces of data in a given day. That data can include anything from usernames and password information that you store as login credentials to credit card or social security numbers, or any other information that hackers can use to steal a user’s identity.
The steps you take to harden your code make it far more difficult for attackers to see sensitive data that can compromise a user’s digital safety and identity.
Not protecting your application’s code from piracy makes it easier for threat actors to replicate your application and use it as a front to steal their data when they think they’re safe.
Intellectual property theft can have lasting consequences for your brand. Not only can it confuse your customers, but it can be a source for potential lawsuits and other issues. However, code hardening also watermarks your code so it’s harder to steal.
Control flow obfuscation introduces false conditional statements and misleading constructs to your code. While it’s still able to function as normal with valid logic, the process combines branching, conditional, and iterative constructs that yield non-deterministic semantics when an attacker tries to decompile them.
Tools like Dotfuscator from PreEmptive introduce spaghetti logic that prevents hackers from analyzing code. Even with some of the most sophisticated decompiling tools available on the market, control flow obfuscation makes it practically impossible for hackers to decode them.
As a basic form of code hardening, rename obfuscation changes the names of methods and variables in your code so they are harder for attackers to understand at face value. However, simply renaming your code isn’t always enough to prevent attackers from wreaking havoc.
That’s why Dotfuscator, DashO, and JSDefender from PreEmptive use a process called Overload Induction™ to take rename obfuscation techniques to another level. Instead of substituting one new name for each existing name of an element, Overload Induction gives as many methods as possible the same name so they’re harder to comprehend.
String references can be an unwitting guide for hackers to find sensitive code and compromise your algorithm. However, with string encryption, you can easily protect and encrypt the user strings in your application so it’s harder to find the vulnerable areas around them that a hacker could exploit.
However, overusing string encryption has some disadvantages—namely, it incurs a slight runtime penalty. To combat this and keep your application running faster, tools like Dotfuscator will only encrypt strings in the parts of the application that you specify.
Much like a speedboat next to a luxury cruise ship, smaller apps can operate faster because they have less digital weight to carry in their code. This is where removing unused code can have multiple benefits.
In addition to letting your application download, install, load, and run faster, pruning unnecessary code gives attackers one less way to compromise your security.
Code pruning tools remove debug information and non-essential metadata to reduce the application’s footprint. This makes it faster and harder to exploit.
Implementing expiration logic for your application applies time pressure on attackers trying to decompile your code. It forces users in your system to exit or sends them a message saying their session has timed out.
While this may not be the best fit for all applications, it’s a great choice for those in beta or undergoing evaluation. With code expiration logic, developers can schedule an app’s deactivation or expiration for a specified date so attackers don’t have endless opportunities to break in and use your app as their digital playground.
PreEmptive’s tools make it easy to obfuscate code across multiple programming languages and device types so every instance of your application can be safe.
To see for yourself how these tools can protect your app, request a free trial today to get started.