Bethesda, Md., August 5, 2009— Arxan Technologies®, a leading provider of application hardening solutions that protect software applications from attacks to minimize risk to code and intellectual property (IP), and an Advanced IBM Business Partner, today announced that it has integrated its GuardIT® for Java solution to IBM Rational Application Developer , and has attained IBM Ready for IBM Rational validation, and Best Practice Compliance status  for the solution.   With GuardIT for Java, developers are now able to directly harden code from within their IBM Rational Application Developer integrated development environment (IDE).   
Now available as an Eclipse-based plug-in that integrates into IBM Rational Application Developer ,  GuardIT for Java  provides a simple, right-click approach for Rational Application Developer customers to build in quick and strong application security at the bytecode, and throughout the software development lifecycle.   

Java Code Open to Attack
Java’s portability, ease of development, cross-platform support and increasing performance are continuing to drive Java adoption.  However, being an interpreted language, Java’s highly structured byte code file format and simple instruction set make it easy to reverse-engineer, tamper and pirate. In particular, ease of Java code analysis enables rapid vulnerability discovery, which accelerates the development of damaging malware.

"As hackers become more sophisticated in their methods, it has become increasingly important to seamlessly harden applications the throughout the lifecycle to prevent the compromise of the code," said Paul Roberts, enterprise security senior analyst, the451group. "This is especially important with Java applications as they are prone to attack and reverse-engineering. This new partnership between IBM Rational and Arxan provides an efficient and effective method for developers to directly harden code from within the IBM Rational Application Developer integrated development environment. "

GuardIT for Java Hardens Code
GuardIT for Java enables developers to quickly and efficiently defend, detect and protect byte code from reverse engineering and decompilation.  Code protections that go beyond simple obfuscation or class loading are instrumented into the application to secure intellectual property and critical routines in real-time.  Key benefits of GuardIT for Java include:

• Easy access through the Rational Application Developer Eclipse user interface, enabling right-click protection of Java applications throughout the application control flow, down to classes, methods and fields in class files.
• Multi-defense approach with strong bytecode encryption, renaming and obfuscation.
• Load-time decryption of Machine (JVM) at any time, resulting in a more secure encryption offering.
• Strengthened security through stripping of debugging information.
• Ability to seamlessly integrate with other Eclipse-based IDEs.

“Java application development is the most widely adopted platform for web and enterprise applications, and therefore the protection of Java code from hackers is vital to organizations especially as we evolve to the cloud and other untrusted environments,” said Mike Dager, chief executive officer, Arxan Technologies. “With GuardIt achieving Ready for IBM Rational status, organizations that use IBM Rational software tools can now feel assured in leveraging GuardIT for Java as an easy-to-use plug-in to strengthen their application security toolkit.”

Arxan Sponsored Webinar on Java Application Security
Arxan will host a webinar event on Java Code Open to Attack on T hursday, September, 24 at 11:30 a.m. ET, featuring Arxan’s VP of Product Management, Vince Arneja.  Register for the webinar event to learn about Java threats and application protections.