Cylance
Cylance Inc. is (was) an American software firm that develops antivirus programs and other kinds of computer software that claims (claimed) to prevent, rather than reactively detect, viruses and malware. The company is based in Irvine, California. Cylance has been described as “the first company to apply artificial intelligence, algorithms, and machine learning to cyber security.” In February 2019, the company was acquired by BlackBerry Limited. It's mission is to "block computer viruses or malware before they have an effect on a user's computer". Founding. Cylance was founded by Stuart McClure and Ryan Permeh in 2012. McClure  was previously co-founder of Foundstone, a security consultancy. He sold Foundstone to McAfee in 2004, and became that firm's Chief Tech Officer. McClure is also the author of "Hacking Exposed", reportedly the best-selling IT security book to date. Cylance's founding came about as a result of McClure's speeches on cybersecurity. In them, he was often asked how he protected his own computer. He noted that he lacked trust in any security technology since it was all reactive in nature (for example, legacy antivirus technology), meaning it only cleaned up after an attack or prevented it  a second time. Consequently, McClure began developing a technology based on "proactive protection". Funding. A July 2015 report indicated that Cylance had raised $42 million from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Dell, CapitalOne, and TenEleven Ventures. It received another $100 million in June 2016 with lead investors Blackstone Tactical Opportunities (part of The Blackstone Group) and Insight Venture Partners. They received an investment from In-Q-Tel in September 2015. Product Features. McClure claims that Cylance's antivirus product does not use security features, such as unique signatures, heuristics, behavioral analysis, sandboxing, virtualization, or blacklisting . Rather, the product claims to use artificial intelligence to identify and stop attackers. McClure claims that its security features are similar to the human brain's way of identifying threats, wherein it "teaches" computers to identify indicators of an attack. Operation Cleaver. Operation Cleaver was a covert cyberwarfare operation carried out by the Iranian government against targets around the world, specifically critical infrastructure entities. Cylance uncovered the operation and described it in a report released in late 2014. Iranian officials rejected Cylance's conclusions, but the FBI tacitly confirmed them. MOTEX Collaboration. In May 2016, Cylance announced a new collaboration  with MOTEX, an Osaka-based firm, to integrate MOTEX LanScope, an endpoint security management, and CylancePROTECT, Cylance's leading product, which claims to proactively detect and prevent malware. The end product will be called CylancePROTECT Cat. Acquisition by BlackBerry Limited. In February 2019, the company was acquired by BlackBerry Limited for $1.4 billion. Honors and awards. The company has won several awards. In March 2018, Cylance won the 2018 MSPWorld Cup Award. In November 2017, LinkedIn recognized Cylance as one of the "Top Companies | Startups" of the year 2017. In October 2017, Cylance was certified as a "Great  Place to Work" on GreatPlaceToWork.com. In September 2017, Cylance was announced a winner of the Gartner Peer Insights Customer Choice Award for Endpoint Protection Platforms by Gartner Inc. In August 2017, Cylance made the "Inc. Magazine"'s Inc. 5000 List for the second year in a row. In May 2017, Cylance made the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for the second year in a row. In March 2017, CylancePROTECT was named Best Endpoint Protection Product of 2016 by SANS Community. In July 2016, McClure was named Orange County Entrepreneur of the Year in the category of technology. In 2016, Cylance was  ranked #23 on the Forbes Cloud 100 list.