Area 1 Security, Inc. was an American cybersecurity 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 ...

which merged into

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in San ...

in February 2022.

History

Area 1 was incorporated in 2013 by Oren Falkowitz, Blake Darché, and Phil Syme, previously employees of the U.S.

National Security Agency 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, collectio ...

. The company received venture capital financing led by

Kleiner Perkins 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 entrepreneur ...

. In December 2018, Area 1 identified a Chinese government cyber campaign targeting more than 100 intergovernmental organizations, ministries of foreign affairs, ministries of finance, trade unions, and think tanks, which included breach of the European Union diplomatic communications network. In January 2020, Area 1 revealed a Russian government phishing campaign targeting Burisma Holdings and its subsidiaries. In February 2022,

announced plan to acquire Area 1 for $126 million in a cash and stock deal.

Service

Area 1 Horizon is a

cloud-based Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

service intended to mitigate

phishing Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwar ...

ransomware Ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid off. While some simple ransomware may lock the system without damaging any files, m ...

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, de ...

, watering holes, malvertising, and other

social engineering Social engineering may refer to: * Social engineering (political science), a means of influencing particular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale * Social engineering (security), obtaining confidential information by manipulating and/or ...

threats, across email, web, and network, at the edge or in the cloud. The service is based on "a network of sensors on web servers around the globe, many known to be used by state-sponsored hackers."

Awards and recognition

Area 1 was named a Cool Vendor by Gartner in 2016, listed among "20 Rising Stars" of the Cloud 100 by ''Forbes'' and recognized by the ''San Francisco Business Times'' as a "Best Place to Work" in 2017, and named Google Cloud Global Technology Partner of the Year Award for Security in 2018. In 2019, the

Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...

ruled in AO 2019-12 that Area 1 could "offer its services to federal candidates and political committees at the same 'low or no cost' tier that it offers to all qualified customers without making an impermissible in-kind contribution".Federal Elections Commission (07/15/2019
“AO 2019-12: Area 1 Security may offer committees cybersecurity services at little or no cost”
''The Federal Elections Commission''. Retrieved 2019-10-11.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.area1security.com Software companies established in 2013 Companies based in Redwood City, California American corporate subsidiaries