Cylance Inc. is an American software firm based in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

, that develops

antivirus program Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name ...

s and other kinds of computer

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

that prevents

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Viruses are found in almo ...

and

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 ...

. In February 2019, the company was acquired by

BlackBerry Limited BlackBerry Limited, formerly Research In Motion (RIM), is a Canadian software company specializing in secure communications and the Internet of things, Internet of Things (IoT). Founded in 1984, it developed the BlackBerry brand of Interactiv ...

for $1.4 billion. After the acquisition, it continues to operate as an independent subsidiary and will remain headquartered in

. In December 2024, Arctic Wolf entered into an agreement with BlackBerry Limited to purchase Cylance. BlackBerry will sell its Cylance assets to Arctic Wolf for $160 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments, and approximately 5.5 million common shares of Arctic Wolf. After allowing for the purchase price adjustments, BlackBerry will receive approximately $80 million in cash at closing and approximately $40 million in cash one year following the closing.

Founding

Cylance was founded by Stuart McClure and Ryan Permeh in 2012. McClure was previously co-founder of

Foundstone McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American proprietary software company focused on online ...

, a security consultancy. He sold Foundstone to

McAfee McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American proprietary software company focused on online ...

in 2004, and became that firm's Chief Tech Officer.

Funding

A July 2015 report indicated that Cylance had raised $42 million from investors including

Draper Fisher Jurvetson Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm. In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures. DFJ Growth continues to be managed by co-founder John Fisher and co-founders Mark Ba ...

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global private-equity and investment company. , the firm had completed private-equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $710 billion of total ...

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

Capital One Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company founded on July 21, 1994, and specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, with operations primarily in the ...

, and TenEleven Ventures. It received another $100 million in June 2016 with lead investors Blackstone Tactical Opportunities (part of

The Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. It was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter G. Peterson, Peter Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, Stephen Schwarzman, who h ...

) and

Insight Venture Partners Insight Venture Management, LLC (commonly referred to as Insight Partners and previously Insight Venture Partners) is a global venture capital and private equity firm that invests in high-growth technology, software, and internet businesses. The ...

. They received an investment from

In-Q-Tel In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the lates ...

in September 2015.

Operation Cleaver

Operation Cleaver was a covert

cyberwarfare Cyberwarfare is the use of cyberattack, cyber attacks against an enemy State (polity), state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting vital computer systems. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, ...

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.

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian officials rejected Cylance's conclusions, but the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

tacitly confirmed them.

Controversies

Malware scandal

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. 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. In response, Cylance executives said that they used repackaged malware samples for testing.

References