Comae, UAE cybersecurity firm, acquired by Canadian tech firm Magnet Forensics 

Magnet Forensics, a Canada-based developer of digital investigation solutions for more than 4,000 enterprises and public safety organizations in over 100 countries, today announced the acquisition of the strategic IP assets of Comae Technologies, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in incident response and memory analysis. As part of the acquisition, Comae founder Matt Suiche will lead a memory analysis and incident response research and development team at Magnet Forensics, where he will further develop a memory analysis platform and integrate the technology into the company’s existing solutions. Suiche’s team at Comae will also work closely with Magnet Forensics going forward.

Comae is a UAE-based cybersecurity company that specializes in cloud-based memory analysis used to recover evidence from the volatile memory of devices. The acquisition will allow Magnet Forensics to accelerate the development of the memory analysis platform within the Magnet Idea Lab, an incubator made up of hundreds of investigators and analysts from leading police agencies and enterprises.

“Memory analysis plays a critical role in incident response investigations because it allows enterprises and public safety agencies to recover buried evidence and understand what happened on devices involved in cyber incidents," said Adam Belsher, chief executive officer of Magnet Forensics. “Very few organizations have the expertise and knowledge to develop memory analysis solutions. With Comae’s platform and the help of its memory analysis experts, Magnet Forensics can address a growing need for our customers while continuing to build on our comprehensive digital investigation platforms.”

Enterprises and police agencies are both looking to use memory analysis to respond to increases in the volume and complexity of cyber incidents. For enterprises, memory analysis can be the key to identifying the compromised devices in a malware or ransomware attack. In a digital investigation, analysts will often examine memory first because it can reveal the infection vectors and post-compromise activities of cyber incidents. It can also help analysts identify modern malware variants. Memory analysis can provide the same benefits to police agencies in their cybercrime investigations and give them another avenue to recover evidence from devices involved in cyber-enabled crimes.

Comae was founded in 2016 by Matt Suiche, one of the world’s leading experts on memory analysis and incident response. Prior to founding Comae, Suiche founded two other firms: CloudVolumes, an application virtualization company that was acquired by VMware in 2014 and MoonSols, a digital forensics and incident response enterprise. Suiche, who began regularly presenting at international security conferences as a teenager, has also held a research position with the Netherlands Forensic Institute, which works alongside public safety agencies to combat cybercrime.