Seculert was a cloud-based
cyber security
Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and networks from thr ...
technology company based in
Petah Tikva
Petah Tikva (, ), also spelt Petah Tiqwa and known informally as Em HaMoshavot (), is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv. It was founded in 1878, mainly by Haredi Judaism, Haredi Jews of the Old Y ...
,
Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. The company's technology was designed to detect breaches and
advanced persistent threat
An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a stealthy threat actor, typically a State (polity), state or state-sponsored group, which gains unauthorized access to a computer network and remains undetected for an extended period. In recent times, the ...
s (APTs), attacking networks. Seculert's business was based on
malware
Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...
research and the ability to uncover malware that has gone undetected by other traditional measures.
In 2012, the company was named one of the hottest new security start-ups by
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
and a finalist in the
SC Magazine
Haymarket Media Group is a private media company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has publications in the consumer, business and customer sectors, both print and online. It operates exhibitions allied to its own publications, and pr ...
awards for Rookie Security Company of the Year.
History
Seculert was founded in 2010 by former RSA FraudAction Research Lab Manager Aviv Raff, former
SanDisk Product Marketing Manager Dudi Matot and former
Finjan Software VP of Operations Alex Milstein.
In 2011, the company launched their first offering, Seculert Echo. Their Seculert Sense, traffic log analysis, was released in October 2012.
At the
RSA Conference
The RSA Conference is a series of IT security conferences. Approximately 45,000 people attend one of the conferences each year. It was founded in 1991 as a small cryptography conference. RSA conferences take place in the United States, Europe, Asia ...
in February 2013 Seculert unveiled the beta version of Seculert Swamp, a malware analysis sandbox.
In July 2012, the company announced $5.35M in venture funding from YL Ventures and
Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, ...
. In July 2013, Seculert announced that they raised an additional $10 million in Series B funding fro
Sequoia Capital.
On January 31, 2017, Seculert was acquired by
Radware, a company based out of
Mahwah, New Jersey
Mahwah is the northernmost and largest municipality by geographic area () in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 25,487, a decrease of 403 ...
.
Notable alerts
In January 2012, Seculert discovered that
Ramnit
Ramnit is a computer worm affecting Windows users. It was estimated that it infected 800 000 Windows PCs between September and December 2011. The Ramnit botnet was dismantled by Europol and Symantec in 2015.
At its peak in 2015, Ramnit was estimat ...
started targeting Facebook accounts with considerable success, stealing over 45,000
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
login credentials worldwide, mostly from people in the
UK and
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
.
In March 2012, Seculert reported that
Kelihos botnet, which was distributed as a Facebook worm, was still active and spreading.
In July 2012, Seculert, in conjunction with
Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab (; ) is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and operated by a holding company in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky, Natalya Kaspersky a ...
, uncovered an ongoing cyber espionage campaign targeting Iran and other Middle Eastern countries dubbed
Mahdi (malware).
In August 2012, Seculert, Kaspersky Lab and
Symantec Symantec may refer to:
* Gen Digital, an American consumer software company formerly known as Symantec
* Symantec Security, a brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, ...
revealed the discovery of
Shamoon
Shamoon (), also known as W32.DistTrack, is a modular computer virus that was discovered in 2012, targeting then-recent 32-bit architecture of Windows NT, NT kernel versions of Microsoft Windows. The virus was notable due to the destructive nature ...
, a sophisticated malware that attacked Qatar's natural gas firm, Rasgas and the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, ARAMCO.
In December 2012, Seculert uncovered
Dexter
Dexter may refer to:
People
* Dexter (given name)
* Dexter (surname)
* Dexter (singer), Brazilian rapper Marcos Fernandes de Omena (born 1973)
* Famous Dex, also known as Dexter, American rapper Dexter Tiewon Gore Jr. (born 1993)
Places United ...
, a new malware that steals payment card data from point-of-sale terminals used by stores, hotels, and other businesses. Most of the victim businesses were English-speaking, with 42 percent based in North America, and 19 percent in the U.K. Dexter infected systems running a variety of different versions of Windows, including XP, Home Server, Server 2003, and Windows 7.
In January 2013, Kaspersky Labs (KL) revealed a cyber espionage operation dubbed
Red October. The next day, Seculert identified a special folder used by the attackers for an additional attack vector. In this vector, the attackers sent an email with an embedded link to a specially crafted PHP web page. This webpage exploited a vulnerability in Java, and in the background downloaded and executed the malware automatically.
In January 2014, the Seculert Research Lab identified a new targeted attack that used Xtreme
RAT
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include '' Neotoma'' (pack rats), '' Bandicota'' (bandicoo ...
. This attack used
spear phishing
Phishing is a form of Social engineering (security), social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing Information sensitivity, sensitive information or installing malware such as Computer virus, viruses, Computer worm, ...
emails to target Israeli organizations and deploy the piece of advanced malware. To date, 15 machines have been compromised including ones belonging to the
Israeli Civil Administration
The Civil Administration (, '; ) is the Israeli governing body that operates in the West Bank. It was established by the government of Israel in 1981, in order to carry out practical bureaucratic functions within the Israeli Military Governorate ...
.
In April 2014, the Dyre Wolf malware campaign mad
headlinesas a banking
trojan
Trojan or Trojans may refer to:
* Of or from the ancient city of Troy
* Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans
Arts and entertainment Music
* '' Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 18 ...
that bypassed 2 factor authentication in order to steal over $1 million from corporate bank accounts.
Awards
*2013 Red Herring, Europe Finalists
Automated breach detection product
Several detection and protection technologies are combined in a cloud-based solution that works to identify new cyber threats.
Automated Traffic Log Analysis is a cloud-based analysis engine that leverages HTTP/S gateway traffic logs collected over time, analyzing petabytes of data to identify malware activity. It automatically identifies unknown malware by detecting malicious patterns and anomalies. Seculert Traffic Log Analysis pinpoints evidence of targeted attacks.
Elastic Sandbox is an elastic, cloud-based automated malware analysis environment. The Seculert Elastic sandbox includes automatic analysis and classification of suspicious files over time. It analyzes potentially malicious files on different platforms and can simulate different geographic regions. The Seculert Elastic Sandbox generates malware behavioral profiles by crunching over 40,000 malware samples on a daily basis and by leveraging data from its crowdsourced threat repository.
References
{{reflist, 30em
External links
Company website
Computer security companies specializing in botnets
Information technology companies of Israel
Privately held companies of Israel
Technology companies established in 2010
Companies based in Petah Tikva