Corellium, the small startup that drives Apple crazy

^TThe end of the year in cybersecurity mirrored the rest of the world, ending in catastrophe: with more than 10,000 people dying every day from Covid-19, a highly sophisticated electronic espionage campaign targeted U.S. government agencies and critical private industry, all customers of a single company: SolarWinds.

But there are some champions trying to make the online world a safer place. Our first Forbes Cybersecurity award celebrates your achievements.

Best product: Corellium

Emulating Androids and iPhones inside a computer turns out to be incredibly useful for anyone who is testing the security of devices and for application developers, making sure that their tools work properly before putting them on the market. Apple hates this, however. The Cupertino giant is suing Corellium, an eight-person startup that creates “virtual” versions of smartphones for testing. Apple claims that Corellium is infringing copyright by copying iPhones, a charge against which the Florida-based company is vigorously defending itself.

Most intriguing newcomer: Greynoise

This startup filters out “loud” alerts from security tools. Founder Andrew Morris says it helps companies stop “chasing ghosts” so that IT doesn’t waste hours looking for an anomaly that wasn’t a real threat.

Disruptive Innovator: R2C

This company, which has the support of Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures, is the creator of Semgrep. It is a static source code analyzer, which may not look attractive, but it helps application developers to identify the weaknesses of their tools on an easy to understand platform. Two of the three co-founders coded for Palantir, so R2C packs some serious technical blows.

Exceptional company: Dragos

Cyber attacks are a threat to the world’s power supplies and critical infrastructure. Just ask Ukraine, which has suffered two attacks that interrupted the supply of energy in the past decade. Dragos specializes in preventing these attacks and is gaining applause for securing this crucial niche. In December, it announced an additional $ 110 million in financing, in a round led by National Grid Partners and Koch Disruptive Industries.

Robert M. Lee

Bill OLeary / Getty Images

Annus Horribilis: Twitter

In July, Twitter’s security mechanisms were circumvented by hackers who took control of important accounts owned by Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Kanye West, Barack Obama and others to promote a Bitcoin scam. Given the impact, it may have looked like a group of elite cyberspies carried out the attack. But in reality, it was coordinated by a teenager in Florida, according to American researchers. Any company can be hacked, but that was a big black eye for a social media giant that spends huge sums on security.

Forbes forecast: Prolonged post-pandemic surveillance

There will be two side effects of the pandemic in the worlds of security and privacy. First, companies will have to continue to allow workers to operate from home safely, as they realize that employees prefer flexibility. Most worrying is that the surveillance required to track the spread of the coronavirus will return to normal, even after vaccines stop the spread of the disease. Expect governments to say that continuous surveillance is necessary to keep future pandemics under control and that privacy advocates argue that they are prolonging spying for their own Orwellian reasons.

_{And drumming, please …}

The person of the year at Forbes in cybersecurity: Maria Markstedter

The Berlin-based security researcher is a former Forbes student under the age of 30 and founder of Azeria Labs, who delves into Arm-based systems to eradicate serious security problems. In an unprecedentedly messy year, Markstedter has been a beacon of common sense in the world of security, continuing to provide valuable training and research, focusing on Arm semiconductors that power iPhones and a host of other popular consumer electronics. Not a bad time, given that Apple is going all-in with the Arm chips for its latest “M1” Macs.

The inaugural Forbes Awards for Cybersecurity was selected in consultation with Daniel Cuthbert, a member of the review board for the Black Hat security conference.

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