F-Secure
More info
- Creator
- Petri Allas, Risto Siilasmaa
- Released
- 1988
- Type
- Security company
Finnish antivirus company from Helsinki that spent thirty years as the Nordic region's most visible voice in security.
It was founded in 1988 as Data Fellows and renamed F-Secure in 1999, around the time it went public. Co-founder Risto Siilasmaa later became chairman of Nokia. The research lab, long run by Mikko Hyppönen, built a reputation for dissecting worms and then explaining them in plain language — an unusual pairing.
In 2022 the company split in two: the enterprise business became WithSecure, while the consumer products kept the F-Secure name. So the brand built on corporate customers stayed with home users, which is a bit like letting the regulars keep the sign while the shop moves across town.