While such illegal actions constitute copyright violation, in most cases that will not deter curious and diligent competitors whose sole purpose is to steal IP—even if the licensed use of the software specifically prohibits reverse engineering.

The problem intensifies with programming languages and environments running on top of virtual machines such as .NET and Java, and presents greater risks to software and system vendors. Reverse engineering this code is quite effortless since these languages utilize Intermediate Language, which is an intentionally exposed format and consequently easy to tamper with. In these cases, the task of reverse engineering does not require an expert.

Therefore, protection against reverse engineering becomes a crucial element in any Software DRM solution. Powerful solutions offer two major technologies for protection against reverse engineering—obfuscation and encryption.

Code obfuscation is a technique that transforms source code in order to make it difficult to understand. The code remains legible, but names and identifiers are changed from their original self-explanatory names to meaningless terms that yield no information. This makes it extremely challenging for human interpretation. Obfuscation obstructs reverse engineering without affecting the behavior of a program.

Encryption is used on the object code of software that is produced by a compiler. It transforms the code in a way that makes it completely illegible to humans and decompilers. An encryption key is utilized, ultimately preventing code examination by anyone without access to the key.

While both techniques are strong anti-reverse engineering methods, each is suitable for different languages and environments.

A robust Software DRM solution will provide both techniques and ensure ultimate enforcement to prevent reverse engineering. Moreover, a solution that relieves engineers from the task of implementing these techniques themselves is highly beneficial. Automatic Software DRM tools for code obfuscation and file encryption enable software engineers to quickly and easily protect their programs without learning complex security methods and protection technologies.