Library · Fundamentals
A threat model for a licensed desktop application
Before choosing tools, list who wants what, what they hold and what you lose if they succeed. Most real-world risk comes from key sharing, not from reverse-engineering experts.
Who the adversaries are
- Users sharing a key with friends: the most common, low motivation.
- Unauthorised resellers: buy one key, sell it many times.
- Crack groups: highly skilled, want to remove every check.
- Honest users hitting a bug: not adversaries, but bad design turns them into victims.
What they hold
Full control of their own machine, time, debuggers, a network they can intercept.
What to protect
Key revenue, server-side secrets, reputation, customer data.
Defence in layers
- Two-way signatures and replay protection: stop fake servers and edited packets.
- Device limits, transfer rules, concurrent sessions: stop key sharing.
- Monitoring and risk scores: notice early when you are cracked.
- Server-Side Enforcement: lower the value of patching the file.
- Obfuscation and virtualization: raise the cost for crack groups.
Do not forget real users
Every layer needs a way back: a reinstall keeps the seat, a wrong clock fixes itself, a mistaken lock can be undone.
With ClavisAUH
Start with Standard Protection, watch Threat Signals on Protect 24/7 for a while, then move to Advanced Protection and turn on Graduated Enforcement.