Cloudflare Acquires S2 Systems Corporation for Next-Gen Browser Isolation
January 7, 2020
Cloudflare, Inc., the security, performance, and reliability company helping to build a better Internet, today announced that it has acquired S2 Systems Corporation (S2), a company that has developed patented browser isolation technology to make everyday web browsing safer and faster. Following this acquisition, Cloudflare expects to add S2’s technology to Cloudflare Gateway, part of Cloudflare for Teams, a new security suite that is designed to protect corporate employees and data without sacrificing performance.
S2, based in Kirkland, Washington, has developed browser isolation technology that executes browser code on cloud servers rather than on a user’s device. The solution keeps security threats away from the device, only sending rendering instructions to the viewer’s browser. Users navigate the Internet without adding risk posed by threats across the public Internet.
Existing solutions typically rely on streaming video of web content (pixel streaming) or attempting to sanitize known malicious content (DOM reconstruction) that forces users to make a tradeoff between security and performance. S2’s approach is designed to avoid this tradeoff. Cloudflare expects that S2’s technology will be able to protect endpoints from zero-day vulnerabilities without sacrificing speed, website compatibility, or user experience.
“The experienced team at S2 Systems has built an advanced technology that we believe surpasses other browser isolation technologies,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. “When we met their team and evaluated the technology they’ve built, we knew that they had the missing piece we needed to support our Gateway product and build out our new Cloudflare for Teams capabilities. We can’t wait to integrate their stellar team within Cloudflare and utilize their remarkable technology in our platform as we continue to help build a better Internet.”
“Cloudflare’s team is nimble and mission-led, and we felt there were great synergies across our teams and alignment across our ambitions and goals. Their ability to run code at the edge-the way it should be run-is unlike anything we’ve seen before, and we’re excited to join our technology with their existing platform,” said Darren Remington, co-founder of S2 Systems. “In joining Cloudflare’s team,” said David Harnett, co-founder and CEO of S2 Systems, “we truly feel that we can make a difference across the whole Internet, by making it faster, better, and safer for all users.”
Customers and industry peers agree:
Amit Mital, former CTO of Symantec and current CEO of Kernel Labs said, “S2’s technology is an innovative approach that changes the fundamental calculus for remote browser isolation. When combined with the global Cloudflare network and edge compute capabilities of Cloudflare Workers, it represents a revolution of the browser and how we securely interact with the web.”
“We have been testing S2’s cloud browser and are blown away by the capabilities of this system. We’ve evaluated other remote browser isolation solutions and the S2 Systems approach is an exciting breakthrough in this space,” said John Carreno, VP IT Infrastructure and Operations at ARS.
“Our company is a national consulting firm serving enterprise clients who need a web browsing solution that provides security without compromising user experience or website compatibility,” said Ryan Janzen, Managing Partner at Teleion Consulting. “The S2 cloud browser checks every box. It is not only transparent, but faster than regular browsing.”
S2’s founding team members are former senior Microsoft employees and have strong backgrounds in Enterprise technology. As a result of the acquisition, the S2 team has joined Cloudflare and is located at Cloudflare’s new office in the Seattle metropolitan area.
