The prevalence of recent cyberattacks has proven that no one is safe from a security breach. Anyone who’s ever thought twice about clicking a suspicious link in a spear phishing email knows that cyber criminals are very skilled and getting more sophisticated with these and other types of targeted attacks. And when it comes to cybersecurity software, not all are created equal.
UC Santa Barbara startup Lastline is changing the cybersecurity landscape with its ability to analyze and protect against advanced malware at an unprecedented speed and volume. Cyberattacks employ a variety of evasion techniques to avoid detection from basic anti-virus software and other first-generation sandboxes, and these techniques often outsmart conventional cybersecurity software. Lastline is specifically engineered to catch these types of evasive malware with its unique full-system emulation that provides the deepest level of visibility into unknown malware behavior and is the hardest for evasive malware to circumvent. Lastline can be integrated with existing security software and also protects across a business’ entire enterprise, including email and web security and across different operating systems. It can also be hosted or deployed on-premise.
Lastline was founded in 2010 by Engin Kirda from Northeastern University (currently Chief Architect), and Christopher Kruegel and Giovanni Vigna from UC Santa Barbara (Chief Scientist and CTO, respectively). Some of the ideas that inspired the creation of Lastline products were developed at UCSB and published in top academic conferences when Kruegel and Vigna were professors in the Computer Science department. This academic background was passed into the “DNA” of Lastline, whose mantra is “innovate to protect.”
“UCSB was very supportive in figuring out the best way to handle intellectual property when setting up Lastline,” said Lastline CTO Giovanni Vigna. “This gave to investors the confidence necessary to invest without risk.”
Since 2010 Lastline has grown to more than 70 employees and raised more than $24 million in funding from Redpoint Ventures, Presidio Ventures, e.ventures and Dell Ventures. Industry leaders like Dell have already added Lastline to their cybersecurity defenses and other respected companies are quickly following suit.
Follow Lastline’s story at www.lastline.com