Synack is an American technology company based in
Redwood City, California
Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...
.
The company uses a crowdsourced network of
white-hat hackers to find exploitable vulnerabilities and a
SaaS
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is con ...
platform enabled by
AI and
machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
to identify exploitable vulnerabilities.
Customers include the government agencies and businesses in retail, healthcare and the manufacturing industry.
Overview
Synack was founded in 2013 by former
NSA
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
agents, Jay Kaplan and Mark Kuhr. Synack uses a network of freelance security analysts, or hackers, in over 80 countries to check vulnerability and security problems.
In 2018, Synack worked with
US Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...
to strengthen the ''Hack the Pentagon'' initiative, by vetting ethical hackers for continual assessment of defense websites, hardware and physical systems. In June 2020, the company partnered with
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
to check for data leakage and buffer errors in their new security prototype developed through the System Security Integration Through Hardware (SSITH) program. In July 2020, the
Colorado secretary of state’s office partnered with Synack to conduct penetration tests of its election systems ahead of the presidential vote.
Funding
Synack is funded by 16 investors. In April 2014, the company announced it had secured Series A funding from
Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...
,
Google Ventures
GV is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides Seed investment, seed, Venture capital financing, venture, and Growth investing, growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Venture ...
, Allegis Capital, and Derek Smith of Shape Security.
In February 2015, the company raised $25 million in Series B funding.
In April 2017, it raised $21 million from
Microsoft Ventures
M12, formerly Microsoft Ventures, is a corporate venture capital subsidiary of Microsoft. Founded in March 2016, its mission is to be an active, strategic partner during a startup's growth, typically investing between Series A and D. The fund is ...
,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas, United States.
HPE was founded on November 1, 2015, in Palo Alto, California, as part of the splitting of the ...
, and
Singtel and prior investors.
Achievements
By April 11, 2017, Synack had 100 employees as well as a growing network of freelance hackers.
CNBC
CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...
named Synack a "CNBC Disruptor" company four times in a row, from 2015 to 2019. In 2019, the company was again named among CNBC Disruptor 50 for Innovative Crowdsourced Security Platform.
According to ''
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
,'' Synack is "the most trusted crowdsourced penetration testing platform."
It is valued at US $500M as of May 2020, as per
Fortune Magazine.
In 2020, the company was featured in America's Most Promising Artificial Intelligence Companies list by
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
magazine and was also named in
Gartner
Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its clients ...
’s Top 25 Enterprise Software Startups.
See also
*
Security hacker
References
{{reflist
External links
synack.com
2013 establishments in California
American companies established in 2013
Security companies of the United States
Computer security companies
Companies based in Menlo Park, California
Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area