Thales Launches Sentinel Envelope Plus to Protect Software Against AI-Assisted Reverse Engineering

• Sentinel Envelope Plus, a new advanced software protection add-on, helps software vendors protect compiled applications against AI-assisted reverse engineering, automated vulnerability discovery, and exploit generation without requiring source code changes
• In a controlled test, an AI agent identified eight of 10 vulnerabilities in an unprotected application; once the application was protected with Sentinel Envelope Plus, it found none, and the analysis was halted after nearly seven hours.

MEUDON, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Thales, a global leader in advanced technologies, today announced Sentinel Envelope Plus, a new addition to its Sentinel Envelope software protection solution that significantly hardens compiled applications against AI-assisted reverse engineering, automated zero-day vulnerability discovery, and automated exploit generation. Sentinel Envelope Plus applies multiple layers of protection to software applications, without requiring source code changes or any special compilation environments.

AI-assisted tools are making it faster and easier to analyze software for vulnerabilities, reducing the specialist expertise and time traditionally required for reverse engineering. This creates new risks for software vendors, particularly when applications are deployed outside environments they control.

On-premises, embedded and edge devices are at increased risk, as attackers obtain a copy of the application and can analyze it offline, beyond the vendor's security environment. This gives them more opportunity to search for vulnerabilities, proprietary algorithms, business logic and other sensitive elements within the software. For mission-critical systems, the consequences can extend beyond data and intellectual property to operational disruption and lasting damage to the vendor's reputation and customer trust.

“AI is dramatically reducing the time and expertise needed to analyze software for vulnerabilities. Our testing shows that the right software protection can make AI-assisted reverse engineering significantly more difficult and resource-intensive,” said Damien Bullot, Vice President, Software Monetization at Thales. “For software vendors, that additional time matters. It creates a larger window to identify issues, deploy fixes and protect customers, while helping safeguard the intellectual property embedded in their applications.”

Measured results against AI-assisted analysis
Thales conducted a controlled test comparing how an AI agent analyzed the same application before and after protection with Sentinel Envelope Plus. When tasked with analyzing an unprotected application, the agent identified 8 of 10 vulnerabilities. Against the same application protected with Sentinel Envelope Plus, the agent identified none, despite sustained effort and 970 times the token consumption. Even after employing increasingly sophisticated techniques, including generating its own custom analysis tools, the agent ultimately recommended discontinuing the analysis. With no vulnerabilities exposed, there was nothing for an attacker to turn into an exploit.

While the vulnerabilities remain in the code, Sentinel Envelope Plus makes them significantly harder to discover and exploit, giving organizations valuable time to detect and remediate issues. Rather than dropping development work to respond to an internally discovered vulnerability, teams can address issues through their planned release cycles, protecting both their product roadmap and their customers.

How Sentinel Envelope Plus protects software
The new solution extends Thales' existing Sentinel Envelope software protection capabilities, allowing developers to apply advanced protection to selected security-sensitive parts of an application, without changing its source code or requiring a special development environment.

Sentinel Envelope Plus transforms and recompiles selected parts of an application, adding multiple layers of protection against decompilation, tampering and runtime inspection. Developers can choose which parts receive the strongest protection, balancing security with performance.

Sentinel Envelope Plus can also combine software protection with optional licensing capabilities, helping vendors protect proprietary algorithms and business logic while safeguarding the license controls that support their commercial models. As with the code protection itself, these license controls can be added without any source code changes.

Sentinel Envelope Plus is available now as a paid add-on to the Sentinel platform.

To read the full test methodology and results, visit the Thales blog: AI Vulnerability Detection Neutralized. Learn more about Sentinel Envelope Protection Solutions here.

About Thales
Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global leader in advanced technologies for the Defence, Aerospace, and Cyber & Digital sectors. Its portfolio of innovative products and services helps address several major challenges: sovereignty, security, sustainability and inclusion.

The Group allocates €4.5 billion per year in Research & Development in key areas, particularly for critical environments, such as Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Quantum and Cloud technologies. Thales has more than 85,000 employees in 65 countries. In 2025, the Group generated sales of €22.1 billion.

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