Cylance should not be confused with Silence.
| Cylance Inc. | |
| Type: | Subsidiary[1] |
| Industry: | Computer security |
| Hq Location City: | Irvine, California |
| Hq Location Country: | United States |
| Services: | Anti-virus, anti-malware |
| Parent: | BlackBerry Limited |
| Revenue: | $189 Million(2021) |
| Num Employees: | 760[2] |
Cylance Inc. is an American software firm based in Irvine, California,[3] that develops antivirus programs and other kinds of computer software that prevents viruses and malware.
In February 2019, the company was acquired by BlackBerry Limited for $1.4 billion.[4] [5] After the acquisition, it continues to operate as an independent subsidiary and will remain headquartered in Irvine, California.
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.[6]
A July 2015 report indicated that Cylance had raised $42 million from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Dell, Capital One, and TenEleven Ventures.[6] It received another $100 million in June 2016 with lead investors Blackstone Tactical Opportunities (part of The Blackstone Group) and Insight Venture Partners.[7] They received an investment from In-Q-Tel in September 2015.[8] [9]
See main article: Operation Cleaver.
Operation Cleaver was a covert cyberwarfare operation allegedly carried out by the Iranian government against targets worldwide, specifically critical infrastructure entities. Cylance published a report about the operation in late 2014. Iranian officials rejected Cylance's conclusions, but the FBI tacitly confirmed them.[10] [11] [12]
In November 2016, a systems engineer evaluated 48 files of malware samples provided by Cylance for testing their protection system "Protect", and found that 7 of them weren't malware.[13] This led to an accusation that Cylance was using the test to look superior to its opponents by providing files that other products would fail to detect as malware.[14] In response, Cylance executives said that they used repackaged malware samples for testing.