StopTheHacker

StopTheHacker emerged in 2008 as a security-as-a-service (SaaS) provider focused on safeguarding websites for small and medium-sized enterprises. The company was co-founded by Anirban Banerjee and Michalis Faloutsos. Banerjee's doctoral research in computer science, which involved observing malware infections on P2P file-sharing sites, directly inspired the company's creation. Faloutsos was a computer science professor and Banerjee's advisor at the University of California, Riverside. The founding team was later strengthened by Peter Jensen, an executive with a background at Oracle and VMware, who joined as CEO.

The firm developed a suite of services to protect against, identify, and resolve malware attacks and other cyber threats. Its core offering utilized proprietary, patent-pending artificial intelligence technology to detect malware, including new threats that traditional signature-based systems might miss. Key services included web malware detection with automatic code removal, vulnerability assessments to identify security weaknesses, reputation monitoring across blacklists like Google and Microsoft, and website uptime monitoring. The business model was subscription-based, offering daily scanning and monitoring for a monthly fee. StopTheHacker primarily targeted web hosters, website owners, and designers, forming partnerships with companies like GlobalSign, DreamHost, and Parallels.

Initial funding came from National Science Foundation grants totaling $600,000 in 2009 and 2010. This was followed by a $1.1 million seed round in 2012 led by Runa Capital. After establishing a strong reputation, evidenced by positive customer reviews in the Cloudflare Apps Marketplace, StopTheHacker was acquired by Cloudflare in February 2014. The acquisition was a strategic move for Cloudflare to integrate malware scanning for new and existing customers, ensuring sites weren't already infected upon joining its network. The StopTheHacker team, including its founders, joined Cloudflare to integrate their technology into Cloudflare's broader security platform. The standalone product continued to be offered until the summer of 2018.

Keywords: website security, malware detection, SaaS, reputation monitoring, vulnerability assessment, Anirban Banerjee, Cloudflare acquisition, cyber threat protection, automatic malware removal, website health monitoring, blacklist monitoring, web hosting security, Peter Jensen, Michalis Faloutsos, Runa Capital, patented security technology, AI security, anti-malware, cybersecurity