AhnLab Acquires AI Cybersecurity Startup 'Jason'

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] AhnLab announced on the 22nd that it has acquired Jason, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based information security startup.

Jason, founded in April 2017, is an information security startup that develops AI-based internal control and data leakage prevention, IT operation and failure prediction system 'JMachine', supplying it to financial and large corporate clients.

On the same day, AhnLab signed a stock purchase agreement to acquire Jason. Through this stock purchase agreement, AhnLab will acquire 60% of Jason's shares. However, even after completing the acquisition process at the end of January, AhnLab plans to maintain the current CEO Kyunghwa Kim's management system and operate Jason as an independent subsidiary.

AhnLab stated that the purpose of this acquisition is to ▲strengthen the AI-based anomaly detection solution business ▲enhance AhnLab's solutions and services by integrating Jason's AI-based anomaly detection technology ▲expand business and technological synergy in the future, such as AI-based cloud security monitoring.

Last year, AhnLab registered as an accelerator with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and formed strategic partnerships and investments with next-generation authentication startup WaikikiSoft and cloud information security startup Spiceware. Following this, AhnLab continues to invest in information security startups by acquiring AI information security startup Jason. AhnLab plans to continue collaborating with digital technology-based startups possessing promising technologies in the future.

Kang Seok-gyun, CEO of AhnLab, said, "Security using AI was selected as one of Gartner's top 10 strategic technologies in 2020, highlighting its importance and utilization more than ever before. Through this acquisition, we plan not only to strengthen the current related business areas but also to enhance our response capabilities to increasingly sophisticated security threats by linking the AI security technologies and large volumes of threat data possessed by both companies."