PreEmptive 101

In this blog we’ve established a 101 – of all things PreEmptive. Our goal is to help you comprehensively understand PreEmptive and our products in basic terms. This is a great piece of content to share with your team, decision makers or that pesky finance department that won’t give you extra budget for security tools.

For those of you who are in the industry and know what we offer, we appreciate the loyalty! If you are new to the industry and are not tech savvy, but want to know a little bit more about PreEmptive, check out our 5 W’s:

Who is PreEmptive?

PreEmptive is an Idera INC software company. We have been obfuscating and protecting applications since 1996, starting with DashO for Java then expanding over the last 20 years to our full range of solutions that you see today! Our core values are: to help organizations make their applications more resilient to hacking and tampering –  to protect intellectual property, to secure sensitive data, and enhance revenue. In other words, PreEmptive is the first line of defense for your code!

What is PreEmptive?

PreEmptive is a software security solution that helps you protect and secure your apps intelligently through a layered approach. Our multi-faeceted approach is applied to the binary code to provide: obfuscation, encryption, root detection, shielding and tamper detection with the end goal of making life difficult for hackers & bots. Let’s add some definitions, what is obfuscation? Obfuscation means making something unclear or obscure – it’s like a frosted window, it obscures your vision but does not prevent functionality. With code obfuscation the goal is to conceal the underlying code that enables the application to function, while ensuring effective functionality of the application 

How is this achieved? Our layered application hardening and shielding is directly infused into your .NET, Java, Android, JavaScript and iOS applications. Which means, we do not require changes to your end user’s computer/device or network to stay fully protected– the solution does the dirty work for you, securing the app against any vulnerabilities in your projects and jumbles up the code so that hackers can’t reverse engineer your proprietary information!

  • PreEmptive not only “scrambles” your source code, but also has the right mix of protection, response and security reporting features, allowing the user to better protect their projects and defending against the ever-evolving data, IP theft, fraud, brand damage and drastic revenue loss. 
  • PreEmptive offers 4 different types of protection: Dotfuscator, DashO, JSDefender, and PreEmptive Protection for iOS. Here’s the key differences:
    • Dotfuscator provides many layers of protection for .NET users with multiple forms of obfuscation (renaming, string encryption, watermarking, active runtime checks (tamper, debug, root, and more).
    • DashO is a security plugin for Android and Java users providing layers of protection by obfuscation (renaming, string encryption, resource encryption, and more).
    • JSDefender is for teams that use Javascript, securing their applications through in-app protection and code obfuscation. This tool helps teams to prevent code from being easily visible to anyone with access to a browser.
    • PreEmptive Protection (iOS) protects all Objective-C iOS applications, reducing the risk of piracy, intellectual property theft and tampering. (Don’t worry, if you’re feeling lost, we will dive into more in depth on each product in our upcoming blogs)

When should you use PreEmptive?

If you’re a start-up company that has blossomed overnight, a freelancer with multiple clients, or a large corporation who needs to enhance their security program, that’s when PreEmptive should come into play. With fair pricing based on your project needs, PreEmptive can be applicable for many organizations.. When writing any source code without protection, you are susceptible to damage and theft, which has long term financial implications. By using any of the PreEmptive products, your team will feel at ease instantaneously, knowing your code is secure even after deployment!

Where does this work?

PreEmptive is injected into your source code, but our operational playbook includes a bottom-up evaluation of security risks, vulnerability mitigation techniques, and post deployment protection to further reduce exposure.

Why should you use PreEmptive?

PreEmptive not only offers different packages based on your needs, but it has been the leading security system for over 17 years! We test, obscure and manage your vulnerabilities directly in your code, so if you feel worried about hackers or stressed about how secure your projects are, check out your options by visiting our main page!

For more information on how to get started or need further help, we encourage you to use our resources, found in our navigation bar. We hope this blog has guided you to understand what it is we do. Be on the lookout for our upcoming 101’s!