SourceDNA

SourceDNA operated as a mobile application security and monitoring firm, established in 2011 by founder Nate Lawson. The company was based in Oakland, California, and participated in the Y Combinator accelerator program during the summer of 2015. Lawson, described as a world-class engineer and security expert, founded the company to address vulnerabilities within the mobile app ecosystem.

The core of SourceDNA's business was a proprietary, patent-pending binary analysis engine. This technology allowed for in-depth scanning of both iOS and Android applications to track code, identify its origin, and assess its quality and intent. The service was designed to discover security flaws, malware, and malicious code before an app's release. One of its key products was a private app review service named Searchlight, which provided proactive monitoring by continuously scanning apps and cross-referencing them against an index of millions of binaries to alert developers of potential issues. This model served a client base that included developers looking to improve their code, as well as major technology companies like Google, Amazon, and Dropbox.

A significant achievement for SourceDNA was its role in uncovering security issues, such as in 2015 when it revealed that third-party developer tools were secretly recording user information in violation of Apple's guidelines. The company's expertise became particularly valuable following the "XcodeGhost" malware incident in 2015, which infected numerous apps on the App Store. This event increased interest in SourceDNA's capabilities, ultimately leading to its acquisition by Apple Inc. in 2016. The acquisition went unreported until it was revealed during the Epic Games v. Apple trial in 2021, where it was disclosed that SourceDNA's engineers were tasked with building a new security tool for Apple's App Store review process. Keywords: mobile security, application security, code analysis, malware detection, binary analysis, iOS security, Android security, SDK analysis, App Store security, Nate Lawson, Y Combinator, Apple acquisition, XcodeGhost, mobile app monitoring, code origin, software similarity, security flaws, continuous monitoring, app vulnerability, developer tools