Overview
Bionano is a biotechnology company specializing in genome mapping and analysis and can enable researchers and clinicians to reveal answers to challenging questions in biology and medicine. Bionano’s mission is to transform how the world sees the genome through optical genome mapping (OGM) solutions, diagnostic services, and software. Bionano also offers an industry-leading, platform-agnostic genome analysis software solution and nucleic acid extraction and purification solutions using proprietary isotachophoresis (ITP) technology.
Challenge
Each time Bionano engages in an enterprise-level clinical environment, they are subjected to a rigorous security audit. By interacting with many security organizations globally, they gained an in-depth understanding of what these security organizations expected.
Bionano chose Node.js as its visualization platform as it facilitated reaching the widest audience of users (macOS, PC, and Linux). It also provided an extensive array of visualization tools such as D3js, ThreeJS, and ChartJS that allow the creation of rich interactive genomic maps for customers to explore. Bionano software is free to encourage the use of Saphyr-generated data. Anyone can download and start their own Bionano Access Server. Bionano needed a way to protect their downloaded client and server-side JavaScript logic to satisfy multiple security regulations
Solution
The Bionano system itself is designed not to hold protected private information (PPI), so the company did not face significant liability to be concerned with. However, as an extra precaution and to be as compliant as possible, the company understood the need for JavaScript code protection. In search of the optimal solution, Bionano tested some JavaScript obfuscation solutions but found out that these could be easily reversed or debugged. Jscrambler was the only solution that passed all their tests and which they could not reverse.
This implementation of Jscrambler was greatly derived from the need to comply with several different regulatory requirements. In the specific case of Bionano, the regulations that apply to their clinical customers vary depending on their local principalities. Some regulations, like ISO 27001 and 27002, specifically require source code protections, while others have more general data protection and/or encryption requirements.
Jscrambler does not solve all of Bionano’s security concerns, but it provides what the company needs to protect the source code enough to satisfy all regulations in that regard. Then, there’s also the matter of protecting intellectual property. Bionano’s system provides comprehensive genomic variation data for review.
“Jscrambler was the only product we found that could not be cracked.”
Scott WayDirector of High-Performance Computing and Genome Visualization at Bionano
“We needed our Node.js application protected to satisfy multiple data protection regulations in customer clinical environments. Jscrambler did that for us, and it was easy to incorporate into our tech landscape.”
Scott WayDirector of High-Performance Computing and Genome Visualization at Bionano
Top Jscrambler Features and Capabilities
- Resilient JavaScript obfuscation
- Built-in protection against reverse-engineering tools
- Anti-tampering and antidebugging capabilities
Results
Thanks to the source code protection provided by Jscrambler, Bionano now obfuscates its code and can prevent debugging. This allows them to satisfy the security concerns of their clinical customers and continue using the platform that gave them the best value.
