V.i. Labs
News & Views

July, 2008 - Vol 1, Issue 7
In This Issue
V.i. Labs Research: Crack Stats
Live Webinar: Software Piracy Strategies
RRI and Anti-Malware Research
Patent for Software Protection Technology
Vote for CodeArmor
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Greetings!
Welcome to the July issue of V.i. Labs News & Views. Summer slowdown? Not a chance - read on for crack statistics on EDA, PLM and CAD software, an upcoming live webinar with SIIA, our work with leading anti-malware researcher Riverside Research Institute, and news about our patent.
V.i. Labs' Original Research:
EDA, PLM and CAD Crack Stats
This month we dig deeper into the stats and present the findings from our own recent research:
 
Methodology:
 
We examined the software piracy release activity for leading EDA and PLM/CAD vendors (including Agilent, ANSYS, Autodesk, Cadence Design, Dassault, The MathWorks, Mentor Graphics, National Instruments, PTC, Solidworks and UGS/Siemens). The majority of these vendors had 2007 revenue exceeding $500M. 
  • The crack releases were across 17 different companies or product lines between 2005-2008
  • We used several crack release search engines and authenticated it using data from our partner, Internet Crimes Group

Findings:

In this timeframe, there were 984 crack releases, of which 21% were EDA applications and 79% were PLM/CAD. The piechart below shows the relative contributions of the crack groups.

Crack Groups

See More Details and Statistics

Live Webinar:
Software Piracy Strategies - Targeting Unlicensed Customers and Lost Revenue
 
SIIA 
 
SIIA and V.i. Labs Webinar
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT
 
Featuring Keith Kupferschmid, SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)

Corporations are pirating your software to build their businesses. The latest trends point to businesses using pirated software to design and build products. If you still think that software pirates live in dorm rooms or their parents' basements, you'll be surprised to learn that the average infringing organization has annual sales of $17 million.

This Webcast goes behind the scenes of software piracy to reveal how corporations are using unlicensed software at your expense. It also provides an overview of strategies, best practices, and specific recommendations on how to identify these companies and convert them into paying customers - including how the piracy channel itself can be leveraged with technology solutions to generate leads.

Attend this Webcast and learn about:

  • How to determine if piracy is a problem for your company
  • How to choose the best anti-piracy strategy for your company - prevention vs. lead generation
  • How to recover revenue from corporate pirates (average revenue recovered can range from $500k to $3M)
  • What the average infringing business looks like, why they are using pirated software, and how it gets there 
 
Register Now
 
V.i. Labs Taps Leading Anti-Malware Researcher Riverside Research Institute to Boost Software Code and IP Protection

V.i. Labs will use Riverside Research Institute, Inc. (RRI) for regular, independent testing of CodeArmor, support for customer red team analysis, and identification of new protection approaches based on its experience in analyzing new malware protection techniques.

Advances are being made on both sides of the malware battle. Anti-malware experts are developing innovative tools to reverse engineer protected malware, and malware writers are deploying new techniques to thwart these tools. To level the playing field for its customers, V.i. Labs will draw on RRI's extensive experience in anti-malware research to further enhance CodeArmor's software protection capabilities.

"Malware writers are adding increasingly sophisticated software protections to prevent security engineers from discovering their malicious intent," said a senior member of the research staff at RRI. "By analyzing the state-of-the-art software protection in the latest malware, we can discover new techniques and strategies for protecting legitimate applications." 
 
V.i. Labs Secures Patent for Software Protection Technology in CodeArmor
 
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted V.i. Labs a patent encompassing the software protection technology used in CodeArmor®.
 
Various software protection approaches have been previously available. However, our approach is the only one that is able to provide comprehensive protection coupled with a process that automates embedding protection into existing software applications without code modification.
 
"Previous software protection approaches require extensive services to instrument them within customer applications and lack the automation necessary to be a part of the application build process," said Joe Noonan, CEO and President of V.i. Labs. "This patent is an important milestone for our business and demonstrates V.i. Labs' continuing technological innovation and leadership in the space." 

Read more
Vote for CodeArmor!
 
Vote Now!
CodeArmor has been nominated for Network Products Guide "Best Products and Services" in the Intellectual Property Protection category.
 
Please show your support for CodeArmor and cast your vote between now and July 22.
 
Thanks for reading this month's newsletter. As you can tell, it's going to be a busy summer!
 
Don't forget to register for our upcoming live webinar on July 29
(don't worry if you can't make it then - sign up and you will be notified when the archived version is available on July 30).
 
Regards,
 
Michael Goff
V.i. Labs
 
©2008 V.i. Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. V.i. Labs, CodeArmor and the V.i. Labs logo, are trademarks of V.i. Laboratories, Inc. All other product and brand names herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.