Flexera Software LLC

Charles Tonkinson

Haroon Azmat

Some embodiments include a method of preventing software licensing exploitation in a virtual environment. The method includes: retrieving, by a first instance of a licensed application running on an original virtual machine as permitted by an original software license, an original unique identifier from a virtual device in the original virtual machine; creating, by a hypervisor of the virtual environment, a cloned virtual machine instance as a copy of the original virtual machine; retrieving, by a second instance of the licensed application running on the cloned virtual machine instance, a new unique identifier from a virtual device in the cloned virtual machine instance; and determining, by the second instance of the licensed application running on the cloned virtual machine instance, that the original software license does not apply to the cloned virtual machine instance because the new unique identifier is different from the original unique identifier.

Preventing license exploitation using virtual namespace devices

Some embodiments include a method of using different keys from an embedded key generator for each update of a trusted storage to mitigate common user-based exploits (clone, restore, tamper) of the trusted storage. The method includes: retrieving a key generator certificate from the key generator; requesting the key generator to generate a key associated with a key authenticator and to return a key handle associated with the key; generating a request to the key generator, the request including the key handle, the key authenticator, and a record to be maintained in the trusted storage; and in response to receiving an encrypted record from the key generator, storing the encrypted record associated with the first key handle and an authenticator generation formula in the trusted storage in a computing device, wherein the encrypted record is encrypted via the above key.

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Henley-on-Thames, United Kingdom

Charles Tonkinson