Microsoft Enhances Application Security Tool in Visual Studio With Improved Dotfuscator

CGIDir
Wednesday, November 8, 2006; 07:09 AM

Microsoft Corp. announced that an enhanced version of Dotfuscator Community Edition (CE) will be included in the next major release of Microsoft Visual Studio, code-named “Orcas.”

“Protecting intellectual property and preventing application vulnerability probing are two important issues for software developers today,” said Prashant Sridharan, group product manager in the Developer Division at Microsoft. “Obfuscation is an important component of Microsoft’s comprehensive application life-cycle management solution, and PreEmptive Solutions’ latest version of Dotfuscator CE represents a significant enhancement to the Visual Studio platform.”

According to Gartner Inc., “The use of interpreted languages, such as Java and managed .NET code, makes reverse compilation a relatively simple task, providing the hacker the ability to steal intellectual property (IP) or look for security vulnerabilities.” (“Hype Cycle for Cyberthreats, 2006,” September 2006, Neil MacDonald, Amrit Williams, et al.)

Gartner recommends that “If you have IP embedded in your software applications that are distributed externally to your enterprise, use code obfuscation, encryption and randomization products to protect deployed applications from reverse-engineering.”

“PreEmptive Solutions is the only application security provider to offer patented obfuscation technology, encryption and randomization capabilities,” said Gabriel Torok, president of PreEmptive Solutions. “Up until this release, the seamless integration to be offered with Visual Studio was only available to users who licensed commercial obfuscators and remains, even today, completely absent from Java IDEs.”

The next version of Dotfuscator CE will feature full integration with Visual Studio, enabling automatic resolution of build dependencies, seamless integration with other post-build processes such as installation script generation, and a consistent means to manage obfuscation artifacts that streamline debugging, patch management and distributed development processes.

“We have always seen obfuscation as being both a process and a portfolio of technologies,” said Bill Leach, CTO of PreEmptive Solutions. “The integration of obfuscation into the Visual Studio development life cycle brings a new level of application security and intellectual property protection to millions of developer desktops.”