Auto-Protecting Against Reverse Engineering Pirates

This article discusses protecting mobile apps from reverse engineering pirates. IBM contracted with Arxan Technologies to develop and implement software that would permit IBM to identify any attempts to tamper with their mobile apps, and allow them to immediately implement measures to prevent any tampering.

These measures may take the form of deactivating the app or deactivating the account using the app. Immediate termination of an account for reverse engineering (or other forms of tampering) can be included as a term in the Terms of Use Agreement for the app.

Take away:

  • A “reverse engineering” prohibition in the terms of use is a good first step, but businesses may want to take extra efforts before launch of their product to protect their software from reverse engineering. A method to do so is by implementing software that protects the product and detects the tampering or reverse engineering and removes the offending entity.
  • To this end, businesses might also want to provide in the Terms of Use Agreement for automatic termination in case of reverse engineering.

Written by Rajah. Rajah Lehal is Founder and CEO of Clausehound.com. Rajah is a legal technologist and technology lawyer who is, together with the Clausehound team, capturing and sharing lawyer expertise, building deal negotiation libraries, teaching negotiation in classrooms, and automating negotiation with software.