April the 25th, 2023 - The Croatian ReversingLabs company has been going from strength to strength, and it has now entered into a strategic partnership with no less than PwC.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, the Croatian ReversingLabs company, registered a software company which specialises in detecting and preventing attacks in the software supply chain, has now entered into a strategic partnership with PwC, a British consulting firm.

PwC's consulting services in combination with the Croatian ReversingLabs platform will provide organisations with much better protection against increasingly complex attacks on their software supply chains, according to ReversingLabs, a company that generates most of its revenue, 90 percent of it to be more precise, across the pond over on the American market.

“More than ever, vendors are dependent on software vendors, which creates a need for automation so that the risks arising from these relationships can be assessed quickly and at scale. The need is even greater when it is known that software suppliers rely on open source code, and that is increasingly being targeted by malicious actors," emphasised Mario Vuksan, the CEO of the Croatian ReversingLabs software company.

Penny Flint, a partner at UK PwC, added that this newly developed partnership will significantly help companies discover and understand the many risks that come from software. Benefits will also be found in the fact that customers of the combined service will be able to visualise the components in their software supply chain(s) and the risks they represent for their businesses.

They will be able to automate guarantees and will be given the proper tools and knowledge to protect their supply chains from start to finish. This will reduce the likelihood and effects of malware and tampering attacks throughout the entire software development and use cycle.

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April the 13th, 2023 - The impressive Croatian ReversingLabs software company is aiming for the very prestigious unicorn status with its brand new product. It seems they have a very good chance of success.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, during these times when we do just about everything via the Internet - we communicate, pay for things, shop, work, study, and even count our steps using the web - the security of our data and software has never been more important, and it's also never been less secure.

''There are countless channels for attack, from messages, emails, links and documents we open, to the basic pages we browse. The methods these hackers and attacks use are constantly developing and improving,'' Igor Lasic, senior vice president for technology of the Croatian ReversingLabs software company explained. ReversingLabs otherwise specialises precisely in cyber security, and Lasic continued by noting that artificial intelligence (AI) will be another component that will further complicate the fight between the good and bad online.

For example, as he he explained, in the software supply chain, the bad guys are constantly looking for weaknesses, and the good guys are constantly looking for ways to eliminate them. "It's a dead race, although users today are still in a slightly better situation than they were ten years ago," said Lasic.

It's specifically in this area - the software supply chain - that the Croatian ReversingLabs company, with offices in Zagreb and across the pond in Boston, deals with. ReversingLabs is currently seeking an opportunity to achieve the goal they are striving for the most - to become a unicorn, that is, a company worth a billion US dollars. They're currently in the phase, he said, of starting to conquer the market with a brand new product.

The company founded by Mario Vuksan and Tomislav Pericin started its operations in Zagreb fourteen years ago with a focus primarily placed on cyber security. This focus is based on previous work experience in the American company Bit9, which was later renamed to Carbon Black. They have focused on developing technology to detect and fight against malicious software (malware), and today they have the best static analysis of software in the entire world that doesn't require any sort of access to the source code.

A turning point in the development of the Croatian ReversingLabs company was the attack by the Russian secret services on the American software company SolarWinds when there was a breach in the networks of tens of thousands of American companies and government agencies. Then, by chance, ReversingLabs turned out to be the only technology option possible for detecting advanced software supply chain attacks.

"Most of the components of today's software, about 80% of them, come from open sources, that is, the Internet. The primary tactic of the attackers is to get to open sources and insert their components into parts of the software, which the users then completely unconsciously incorporate into their own software," explained Lasic.

As terrifying as that sounds, there are more and more such incidents taking place, and heavily infected software packages are discovered on a weekly basis, with several major incidents occurring annually.

The biggest and most sophisticated such attack so far was the aforementioned "SolarWinds" attack, and nowdays we're witnessing another big attack - the one through the 3CX application for making calls over the Internet.

''Our task is to control open source repositories on a daily basis, and even more often, with the aim of detecting infected software components and preventing such incidents from taking place,'' Lasic pointed out. The quality of their solution was also quickly recognised by investors, and the Croatian ReversingLabs company received a second round of investment in the amount of 56 million US dollars back in 2021, while in total they have received 81 million dollars of investment to date, which makes them one of the most potent domestic startups that could take the title of the third Croatian unicorn.

According to Lasic, the latest investment was led by the private equity fund Crosspoint Capital, which is interesting for several reasons. It is led by some of the giants of the technology industry in the modern day, and one of the partners in the fund is Greg Clark, a big name in the world of cyber security who managed Symantec, a well-known American software giant, for several years.

"They recognised the potential of the technology that ReversingLabs has developed and believe that we can become a unicorn. They're also specific in that they provide us with both tactical and strategic assistance," says ReversingLabs' senior vice president for technology. ReversingLabs will really need that help, because the company is in the phase when it has to market its new product, and on the insanely competitive American market, that is certainly not easy, even with the best possible product.

"Sales and marketing must now capitalise on the technical excellence that we've developed and ensure our recognition on that market," emphasised Lasic, who replaced Zagreb with Boston during his studies and "stayed" there for a full 30 years. The majority of that investment was invested in the development of a product intended to provide security in the software procurement chain and to strengthen the team in charge of sales and marketing.

They increased that department in their American office located in Cambridge near Boston by about five times, and the number of people in Zagreb, who are engaged in engineering work, research and product development, by about 40. Today they have a total of more than 250 employees, and more than 170 of those people are based here in Zagreb. A significant spring in their step in terms of the conquest of the US market will surely be the fact that the analytical company Forrester included them in their overview of the most complete solutions of SCA suppliers (software composition analysis) for the year 2023.

This is important, according to Lasic, because based on that list, numerous companies decide which and whose solution they will implement. Their goal is to conquer the American market, where they currently generate 90 percent of their revenue with their first product, and those figures have been growing significantly for the past two years now. Europe is important to them, but it is a smaller market, and the general level of awareness of cyber security, as well as the budgets dedicated to it, are much lower.

Despite the difficult economic situation we all continue to find ourselves in, the Croatian ReversingLabs company isn't too concerned about the turbulence and crisis unfolding in the technology sector, which is currently in full swing in the USA and around the world.

"This is the best time to start something. Hard times either bring out the best in you or destroy you. In this situation, you have to focus all your energy on finding the best and optimal ways to make money," said Lasic, who led the development of as many as six startups across the pond in America before coming to ReversingLabs. He has been at ReversingLabs for eight years now, and what keeps him going is the founder's ambition and new projects, of which there is no shortage.

"The company is constantly growing, so my function changes accordingly, which is a big challenge for me. That makes me happy and it's really fulfilling. The worst thing is when the company stagnates because it's difficult to maintain the work ethic in such situations,'' concluded Lasic.

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June the 21st, 2022 - The Croatian company ReversingLabs has won a prestigious award across the pond in San Francisco.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Croatian technology companies have popped up more and more recently and they are only continuing to succeed. The latest in a series is the Global InfoSec Award won by the Croatian company ReversingLabs, which is a real leader in software supply chain security development.

The Croatian company ReversingLabs received the award for the best product in the field of application security at the RSA 2022 conference held recently in San Francisco, specifically for their product called secure.software, a solution to protect the process of the continuous delivery of both containers and software packages.

“We're honoured to be able to receive this prestigious Cyber ​​Security Award and be recognised by top judges. Threats in the supply chain and problems with unauthorised software changes continue to plague companies. Despite growing awareness, many people are still unsure how to respond to these threats. Through our secure.software solution, we provide companies with ease and security regarding all versions of software they deliver,'' said Mario Vuksan, the co-founder and CEO of the Croatian company ReversingLabs.

This is not the only award this successful company, which built the world's largest malware database through a development centre right here in the City of Zagreb, has won this year. There are a few more on the list that have won in the area of ​​software security assurance.

This, the latest award for another Croatian company, is more than enough to provide yet another spring in the steps of many of the enterprises in this country which are gaining international recognition and as such placing this country on the tech and startup map.

For more on Croatian companies, entrepreneurs, innovations and more, make sure to check out our dedicated Made in Croatia section.

April the 16th, 2022 - The Zagreb ReversingLabs company has become a member of the world's largest open source security initiative, placing Croatia on the map of success in yet another sector.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, among the 20 global technology and other companies that joined Linux's Open Source Security Foundation in March (OpenSSF) is the Zagreb ReversingLabs company, a cybersecurity specialist enterprise and one of the fastest growing IT companies in all of Croatia.

OpenSSF has been operating under the auspices of the non-profit Linux Foundation since August 2020, and it brings together the world's most important initiatives to increase open source security. The latest round of membership enlargement saw Spotify, MongoDB, Alibaba Cloud, Citi, Huawei Technologies and others join, as well as the Zagreb ReversingLabs company. This followed recent speeches to congressional bodies on the growing risks of open source and the need to increase its security. The White House also held a summit on the same topic.

Open source security is under the magnifying glass of the American authorities after a number of organisations and corporations were attacked back in 2020 and 2021 through the software supply chain. With the May 2021 decree, American President Joe Biden enacted a series of measures to improve the security of software and digital infrastructure in the country, and a significant portion of those measures relate to the supply chain. Further improvements to the regulatory framework are also expected.

“More and more new threats are coming from the software supply chain, and among them are risks from the open source ecosystem. Due to a number of interdependencies and complexities, companies often don't have any insight into the origin of the code and components built into their software. It's difficult for them to recognise malicious elements in applications and track every component from its origin to the final version of the software. We're happy to join OpenSSF and we believe that we can contribute in the field of automation of more complex lists of software components, as well as when it comes to further reducing risks related to the supply chain and software development process,'' said Mario Vuksan, CEO and co-founder of the Zagreb ReversingLabs company.

''Open source is the foundation on which software is built today. Our work at OpenSSF, along with the contributions of companies and individuals from around the world, is key to the improvements we want to achieve,'' said Brian Behlendorf, the CEO of OpenSSF. According to him, OpenSFF is a neutral forum with broad support through which significant progress can be made when it comes to open source security.

The Zagreb ReversingLabs company

ReversingLabs has built the world's largest malware database through a development centre located right here in Zagreb. The company, founded back in 2009 by Mario Vuksan and Tomislav Pericin, won the title of Black Unicorn in the United States of America for the third year in a row last year. It is awarded in the cybersecurity industry to companies with growth potential up to a market value of one billion dollars. ReversingLabs' development centre and expertise are all in Zagreb, and their customers - leading social networks, antivirus companies, corporations and government agencies - are rrom all around the world.

So far, they have raised 81 million US dollars in two investment rounds and invested it in new product development, organisational growth and further placement in the US market. They employ 120 people here in Zagreb, and another 60 in the American city of Boston. They have significant sales and marketing activities in the US, where they have been present almost since their inception.

The Zagreb ReversingLabs company was also among the first to interpret the anatomy of the attack on the American IT company SolarWinds, which marked the entire year of 2021 and is one of the largest known cyber incidents in the world to date.

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