PreEmptive Solutions Releases New Version of DashO Java Obfuscator

PreEmptive Solutions has announced the availability of DashO Version 5, its tool that integrates application security with business performance monitoring for Java-based applications. 

PreEmptive announced the release of DashO 5 at the RSA Conference 2009 in San Francisco. The new version includes improved security and support for emerging enterprise and mobile frameworks such as Android, as well as the ability to monitor application adoption and end-user behavior, company officials said.

DashO is a Java obfuscator. Obfuscator tools are used to help make it more difficult to reverse-engineer programs. Indeed, programs written for Java or .NET are easy to reverse-engineer with decompiler tools. However, an obfuscator removes and alters context from compiled code programs, which makes it harder for anyone to reverse-engineer programs.

DashO 5 provides protection, measurement and management for mobile development frameworks, including Google Android. It also features PreEmptive's Runtime Intelligence Service integration, which provides the ability to inject session and feature level monitoring post-build with no programming required and stream run-time data to the Runtime Intelligence Service portal. And the product also provides automated support for Spring, Hibernate, JSP Tag Libraries and WAR files. Automated support for these frameworks and libraries has become a broad industry requirement, the company said.

“This release represents the culmination of a year’s worth development investment in the DashO product suite,” said Michael Moores, vice president development of PreEmptive Solutions. “Our clients have long recognized the importance of protecting intellectual property and securing applications, but there is a lot of excitement about the prospect of combining application security with application monitoring to better establish R&D priorities and ultimately increase the return on application development investments.”

"When DashO was launched in 1999, it was in response to emerging threats unique to Java and the state of computing systems at the time," said Gabriel Torok, CEO of PreEmptive. "Fundamentally, our mission has not changed except now development teams are deploying across clouds, servers and mobile devices, and monitoring application use is as important as securing code. This latest generation of DashO is again the first in class to integrate application security and business performance monitoring.”