KSIGN Subsidiary SANDS Lab Receives A Grades in Technology Assessments for KOSDAQ Listing

KSIGN Subsidiary SANDS Lab Receives A Grades in Technology Assessments for KOSDAQ Listing

The first AI-powered security technology in Korea to receive national New Excellent Technology (NET) certification

Press Release | 2022-06-28

(June 28, 2022) KSIGN announced on June 28 that its subsidiary SANDS Lab, a cyber threat intelligence service provider led by CEO Kim Ki-hong, received A grades in both assessments of its technology business plan for a technology-based special listing targeted for the second half of this year.

A technology-based special listing on KOSDAQ requires a company to meet the minimum rating from at least two technology evaluation agencies designated by the Korea Exchange. SANDS Lab received A grades from both NICE D&B and e-Credible.

SANDS Lab is a security company providing AI services based on big data. It develops and operates malwares.com, a cloud-based service that collects and analyzes cyber threat intelligence (CTI) on new threats and variants from around the world. The company became a KSIGN subsidiary in 2017.

At the end of last year, SANDS Lab’s core malware profiling technology, “Attacker Profiling Based on Binary Reverse Engineering,” received New Excellent Technology (NET) certification from the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. This established a firm foundation for securing an early lead in Korea’s cyber threat intelligence service market. NET is one of the most demanding certifications available in Korea, and SANDS Lab was the first in the country to obtain it for AI-powered security technology.

The core of SANDS Lab’s new technology is its ability to extract features from malware binaries through reverse engineering and use those features to identify attackers and their attack techniques.

Using AI, the vectorized features also automate tasks previously performed manually by a small number of specialists, including clustering, tracking malware variants, and generating profiles of each attacker’s techniques. Large-scale analysis makes it possible to generate high-quality intelligence.

In recognition of its proprietary technology, SANDS Lab became the second Korean company to join the global Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) in 2017, forming a collaborative network with leading security companies worldwide to share threat intelligence and work closely together. As of May 2022, intelligence analyzed and generated by SANDS Lab was being shared with more than 30 global cybersecurity companies. SANDS Lab has strengthened its position by consistently ranking among the top contributors in both the volume and quality of intelligence shared each month.

SANDS Lab CEO Kim Ki-hong said, “I am very pleased that the technology assessments appear to recognize the value of the data we have collected and profiled over the past 18 years as a cyber threat intelligence startup, along with the core technologies behind it.” He added, “As information security is directly tied to national security, we will contribute to strengthening national competitiveness as a company capable of responding safely to a wide range of cyber threats.”

SANDS Lab has selected Kiwoom Securities as its lead underwriter and plans to submit an application for a preliminary KOSDAQ listing review.