Gothenburg-based Recorded Future buys Dutch Hatching, which develops safety “sandboxes”. The acquisition will help Recorded Future gain better control of the hackers’ tools.
Software that can be harmful needs to be investigated, and this is most easily done in a limited environment that has no connection to the outside world. The environment is usually called a sandbox as it is possible to do almost anything there, without any consequences outside the box. Dutch Hatching is developing systems for just such sandboxes – and that is the reason why Recorded Future is now buying the company.
– In sandboxes, you can identify the type of malware it is about and see which IP addresses the software is trying to communicate with. It gives us a better picture of the threat landscape, which is important to be able to act proactively, says Staffan Truvé, technical manager and founder of Recorded Future, to Ny Teknik.
Truvé: “Complements our previous company acquisition”
According to him, Recorded Future not only wants to map who the hackers are and how they attack the outside world, but also better understand what the hackers’ tools look like.
– That is exactly why the purchase of Hatching fits in so well, because it complements our previous company acquisition, namely Security Trails, says Staffan Truvé.
The purchase of Security Trails was made last winter, and media reports claim that it was an investment of SEK 600 million. However, Staffan Truvé does not want to comment on the purchase price for either that purchase or the current purchase of Hatching.
Staffan Truvé, co-founder and head of research at Recorded Future, at the company’s Gothenburg office. Photo: Sören Håkanlind
However, he wants to highlight the plans for how Recorded Future will make Hatching available to the public. The ambition is to offer free sandboxes for those who so wish – in exchange for users telling where the potentially malicious software comes from.
– In this way, we can get an even better picture of where in the world the cyber attacks are taking place, he says.
Recorded Future has a turnover of 2.5 billion
Recorded Future, which among other things has developed a cyber weather report, is growing rapidly. When Ny Teknik wrote about the company just over a year ago, the number of employees was 580. Today, that number has grown to 850 employees, of which 120 in Sweden. According to Staffan Truvé, the plan is to employ another 100 people in Sweden over the next 12 to 18 months. The turnover for Recorded Future is currently SEK 2.5 billion.
Recorded Future was founded in 2009 by Staffan Truvé, together with his doctoral colleague at Chalmers, Christopher Ahlberg. Ten years later, Recorded Future was acquired by the venture capital company Insight Futures. Other investors are the investment company In-Q-Tel and Google Ventures.
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