ESET

ESET is a cybersecurity vendor selling endpoint protection for both home users and organisations, with detection combining machine learning with in-house threat research under its ESET LiveSense technology stack. Home plans cover antivirus, safe banking and browsing, VPN, encryption of files and folders, smart-home and IoT protection and identity monitoring. For businesses the portfolio adds server security, full disk encryption, mobile threat defence, mail server security, protection for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, cloud workload protection, vulnerability and patch management, XDR through the cloud tool ESET Inspect, a 24/7 managed detection and response service and mobile-based multi-factor authentication. Management is available as a cloud or an on-premises console.

Its own figures are a billion-plus protected devices, more than 500,000 business customers, 176 countries and territories, more than 30 years of experience, 800-plus researchers and 12 research and development centres. It cites a 99.9% malware protection rate, more than 100 consecutive VB100 awards, 11 years as a top performer in AV-Comparatives testing and 700-plus customer care staff. Its researchers have published on previously unknown espionage groups including Sandworm, Turla and MoustachedBouncer, and it is a founding member of the Google App Defense Alliance and a partner of Intel.

ESET was formally established in 1992 by Miroslav Trnka, Peter Pasko and Rudolf Hruby as a privately owned company, named after the Egyptian goddess of protection, and traces its code back to the NOD antivirus written in 1987; NOD32 took its first VB100 award in 1998. The company remains independent and privately owned, and its global headquarters is in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic.