Company offices in Helsinki, Finland

F-Secure Corporation (formerly Data Fellows) is an anti-virus and computer security and computer software company based in Helsinki, Finland. The company has 20 country offices and a presence in more than 100 countries, with Security Lab operations in Helsinki, Finland and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Through more 200 operator partners globally, millions of broadband customer use F-Secure services. F-Secure Corp. is publicly traded on the Helsinki Stock Exchange under the symbol FSC1V.

F-Secure claims that it was the first antivirus vendor to establish a presence on the World Wide Web. The F-Secure Labs weblog tracks global internet and mobile security threats.

F-Secure has been listed twice, 2003 and 2006, on "Finland's best places to work" list published by Great Place to Work® Institute, Inc.^[1] Technology Academy of Finland named Pirkka Palomäki, F-Secure's Chief Technology Officer, as CTO of the Year 2011.^[2]

History[link]

F-Secure was first established under the name Data Fellows by Petri Allas and Risto Siilasmaa in 1988. Data Fellows trained computer users and built customized databases. Three years later, the company launched its first major software project and developed the first heuristic scanner for antivirus products. F-Secure’ first antivirus product for Windows PCs was launched in 1994. Data Fellows became F-Secure in 1999. F-Secure was the first company that developed an Anti-rootkit technology called BlackLight in 2005^{[citation needed]}.

In July 2009, F-Secure purchased Steek, a French company specialized in online storage and backup services for consumers.^[3]

F-Secure Internet Security received the product of the year award in 2010 from AV-Comparatives, as it got the least false alarms (2). This put F-Secure ahead of Panda Software (98) and other anti-virus companies.^[4]

F-Secure Client Security received the Best Protection 2011 award in 2012 from AV-TEST. AV-TEST is an independent testing organization that evaluated 2011 7 corporate protection products, and the results are based on all of the certifications tests made in 2011.^[5]

In 2012 F-Secure entered into the Content Cloud space with Content Anywhere solution. It gives an opportunity to store, sync and share content across devices – desktop, tablet, mobile and TV. It will be available through selected operator partners.^[6]

Products[link]

The current line of home-user products from F-Secure includes F-Secure Internet Security, F-Secure Anti-Virus, F-Secure Anti-Virus for Mac, F-Secure Mobile Security, F-Secure Online Backup and F-Secure Free Anti-theft for Mobile.

F-Secure’s business products include F-Secure Protection Service, F-Secure Business Suite, F-Secure Client Security, F-Secure Anti-Virus for Servers, F-Secure Protection Service for Email, F-Secure Policy Manager, F-Secure Mobile Security for Business, F-Secure Messaging Security Gateway and F-Secure for Exchange.

White-labeled versions of F-Secure’s security software are also available through operators around the world via monthly or yearly subscription plans. F-Secure is the global leader in providing software as a service through operators with over 200 operator partners worldwide including AT&T, Vodafone and Telefonica.

F-Secure uses Bitdefender's scan engine.^[7]

Technology[link]

F-Secure has OEM agreements with several security vendors to integrate detection technology engines in its own offerings.

DeepGuard, now in its 4.0 incarnation, is an F-Secure in-house developed HIPS or advanced system monitoring technology, which detects new or unknown malware intrusions based on unusual, suspicious changes in the Windows system and automatically blocks processes caught in the act. DeepGuard is resource intensive and requires fairly strong hardware to work without affecting customer experience (1GHz+ CPU and 512MB RAM or better recommended).^{[citation needed]}

In July 2009 F-Secure bought French company Steek SA which provides software for online storage and data management solutions to fixed line and mobile operators. Steek SA is being fully integrated into F-Secure as the Storage and Digital Content business unit.

Academia[link]

In co-operation with Aalto University School of Science and Technology, F-Secure runs a one semester course for future virus analysts, with some material available on-line.^[8]

Policy on detecting government spying programs[link]

After the media coverage of Magic Lantern (software) and claims by some AV vendors to purposefully leave a backdoor for it in their products, F-Secure announced their policy on detecting these spying programs:

"F-Secure Corporation would like to make known that we will not leave such backdoors to our F-Secure Anti-Virus products, regardless of the source of such tools. We have to draw a line with every sample we get regarding whether to detect it or not. This decision-making is influenced only by technical factors, and nothing else, but within the applicable laws and regulations, in our case meaning EU laws.

We will also be adding detection of any program we see that might be used for terrorist activity or to benefit organized crime. We would like to state this for the record, as we have received queries regarding whether we would have the guts to detect something obviously made by a known violent mafia or terrorist organization. Yes we would."^[9]

See also[link]

• Mikko Hyppönen
• List of antivirus software

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website