Sqreen

Sqreen emerged in 2015 as a security-focused enterprise, co-founded by Pierre Betouin and Jean-Baptiste Aviat. The founders' journey is deeply rooted in offensive security, with both having honed their skills on Apple's 'Red Team,' where they were responsible for challenging the security of products like the iPhone. Betouin previously led this global offensive security team at Apple for nearly a decade, while Aviat also spent five years there as a security researcher and white-hat hacker. This firsthand experience of how difficult it is to maintain secure code, even at a tech giant, directly inspired the creation of Sqreen.

The company developed an application security platform catering to the modern enterprise, designed to protect, observe, and test applications, APIs, and microservices. Sqreen's business model was centered on a SaaS-based platform that provided a Runtime Application Self-Protection (RASP) and an in-app Web Application Firewall (WAF). This service was sold to a global client base of over 800 organizations, including notable names like Skyscanner and BlaBla Car, helping them detect and block application-level attacks. Revenue was generated through subscriptions to its platform, which processed tens of billions of application requests weekly.

Sqreen's core product offered a departure from traditional, pattern-based security. Instead, it embedded sandboxed microagents directly into applications via dynamic instrumentation, requiring no code modifications or traffic redirection. This approach enabled real-time analysis of in-app execution, allowing for the detection and blocking of code-level exploits as they occurred without compromising performance. Key features included automated application protection, threat detection, and security monitoring, which gave developers enhanced visibility into security incidents and could even automatically patch certain vulnerabilities. In April 2021, the company was acquired by Datadog to integrate Sqreen's application security capabilities into Datadog's broader monitoring and security platform.

Keywords: application security management, RASP, in-app WAF, web application security, DevSecOps, threat detection, real-time protection, microservices security, API security, application monitoring, cybersecurity, Pierre Betouin, Jean-Baptiste Aviat, Datadog acquisition, code-level security, vulnerability management, dynamic instrumentation, application protection, security automation, cloud security, runtime protection, security monitoring, SaaS security, enterprise security, exploit detection