1. Sentinel HASP Halts an Attack in
Progress, Protecting Virtual Surveillance’s
Hardware and Software Systems from
Reverse-Engineering and Theft
Case Study
Virtual Surveillance is one of only six companies worldwide licensed to sell surveillance equipment to Las Vegas and
Washington state casino markets. Competing in such a highly aggressive industry, it is vital that the company protects its
products from reverse engineering. Initially, Virtual Surveillance used an in-house protection method, however they realized
the need for a more robust method when they learned of a hack in progress. The company quickly implemented Sentinel
HASP and foiled the attack.
The Back Story
Virtual Surveillance understands protection. The company provides Challenge
hardware and software protection to industries that require the When their in-house solution was not able to protect an attack in
highest levels of security and confidentiality, including government progress, Virtual Surveillance needed a new protection solution.
agencies, medical facilities, hotels and casinos. Their intelligent
video surveillance program contains software that analyzes video Solution
in real-time and creates alerts that address security threats before Virtual Surveillance chose Sentinel HASP to protect their global
they escalate. When their own security was compromised, Virtual surveillance equipment from reverse-engineering.
Surveillance realized the need for a new protection solution.
The Business Challenge Results
Originally, Virtual Surveillance produced their copy protection in- Sentinel HASP was able to halt an attack in progress and save Virtual
house. Their homegrown protection made it difficult to move the Surveillance costly losses.
software license to a different machine, or to copy it. For instance, if
someone were to use one of the readily-available tools to spoof the
MAC addresses of network cards, they could continuously re-use a
single software license key. Their worst fears became a reality when
Virtual Surveillance discovered a breach in security. Someone was
attempting to reverse-engineer both their hardware and software
products.
The Solution
This attack led them to Sentinel HASP. Virtual Surveillance’s
software is spread across many different applications, each of
which is dependent on an ASP.Net web service used for sharing
Virtual Sureveillance Case Study 1

2. media, such as video and snapshot images. This method enables “In the course of two days, HASP was able to
the synchronization of media across various machines and users,
provide a time-critical, turnkey solution to enable
requiring an access code to obtain the information.
us to protect our multi-million dollar investment in
Due to the security requirements for these applications, having a
closed network is an absolute necessity. Creating a system using
the casino surveillance market. By enabling us to
HASP keys to protect the access to the ASP.Net web service, Virtual protect our software against piracy and
Surveillance is able to create a single point of failure, rendering the reverse-engineering, HASP has provided us with
other applications useless. The web service performed real-time
more time for solving our customer’s problems,
checks to the HASP key during each call. If the HASP key were not
present, the key would throw an error to the client application, rather best-in-class value and priceless peace of mind.”
than fulfilling the desired request.
-Eric Burcham, Chief Technical Officer, Virtual Surveillance
With no established procedure for protecting a web service with
a HASP key, Virtual Surveillance was primarily concerned with Benefits
functionality. With the imminent threat of a hack underway, speed IP Protection: Sentinel HASP prevents reverse-engineering of code
in implementation was of the essence. Through the help of their and offers robust anti-debugging and code obfuscation technology.
SafeNet account representative, Virtual Surveillance spoke with a
Functionality and Customer Service: HASP support technician’s
HASP technician, who provided quick and simple instructions, along
work with the customer to deploy a solution that meets their
with a sample C# code for a Windows application example which they
specific needs.
were able to modify. With the Sentinel HASP key on their side, Virtual
Surveillance was able to protect their software before the threat could Quick and Easy Implementation: Sentinel HASP’s quick and easy
manifest itself into actual theft. implementation enabled Virtual Surveillance to foil a hack that was
already in progress.
Virtual Surveillance was also concerned that they would not get
their keys encoded and on-site quickly enough to counter the
About Virtual Surveillance
threat. Through the efforts of their SafeNet representative, they
Virtual Surveillance designs and markets digital video surveillance
received their HASP master key overnight and were able to send
systems used for the surveillance and protection of multi-site
the user keys to the field site before the hack succeeded. The entire
operations. These solutions include Digital Video Recorders, or
process, including learning of the threat, speaking to the account
DVRs. Replacing traditional VCR recorders, DVRs provide DVD quality
representative and technician, receiving the keys in Dallas, TX,
recordings, tremendous amounts of storage for long-term archival,
implementing the protection code and shipping the updated product
and the ability to provide certifiable evidence for court
and key to Las Vegas, NV, lasted less than 48 hours.
room situations.
The Rewards The company also produces motion analytics software including
After less than two hours of development time and a quick on-site motion detection, digital tripwires, object left-behind or removed
update, Virtual Surveillance was able to completely protect their detection, and much more. In addition, Virtual Surveillance provides
multi-million dollar development effort from a known attack that was integration with existing alarm systems and alarm triggering
underway. The cost to them, had the hacker succeeded, would have capabilities based on any motion event detected in a video feed by
been incalculable. its software. To learn more about Virtual Surveillance,
visit: www.vs-us.com
“The keys themselves,” noted CTO Eric Burcham, “cost a thousand
percent less than the time and effort we would have spent coding About SafeNet
our own equally formidable protection, and manually generating and Founded in 1983, SafeNet is a global leader in information security.
keeping track of activation keys for our customers.” SafeNet protects its customers’ most valuable assets, including
identities, transactions, communications, data and software licensing,
As a small company providing a highly specialized turnkey solution for
throughout the data lifecycle. More than 25,000 customers across
a rapidly changing and elitist market, Virtual Surveillance needed to
both commercial enterprises and government agencies and in over
protect their assets. Burcham further stated, “HASP gave us the tools
100 countries trust their information security needs to SafeNet.
necessary to fully protect our software, so we could focus more time
on our customer’s needs. Our total cost in protecting our multi-million
dollar development effort from a known threat was less than $300,
including development time and overnight shipping both ways.”
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©2011 SafeNet, Inc. All rights reserved. SafeNet and SafeNet logo are registered trademarks of SafeNet.
All other product names are trademarks of their respective owners. CS (EN)-07.20.11
Virtual Sureveillance Case Study 2