Montreal, Canada and Iasi, Romania are now home to two new research and development offices for cybersecurity leader ESET. Following a successful year of growth, with the company opening a sales and distribution office in the UK and expanding in Germany with the Munich office, ESET is now making further investments into research talent across the globe. The increased capacity will enable the company to support new services like ESET Threat Intelligence while improving responsiveness in the face of new cyber threats. The expansion further confirms ESET’s long-term strategy of becoming a top 3 global IT security vendor.

“Opening two research and development centers in two completely different parts of the world is an important step in ESET’s evolution, and a good start to 2017,” said Juraj Malcho, Chief Technology Officer at ESET. “By investing in talent and capacity we aim to better provide our users with benefits from three decades of ESET know-how, securing their connected lives and businesses, while at the same time staying at the forefront of the cyber security industry. Strengthening our global presence in the field of research and development is one of the key elements we will reinforce throughout the year.”

The new office in downtown Montréal is an expansion of the already functioning branch –  ESET Canada Recherche, originally founded and located at the Polytechnique Montréal campus in 2009. Over the years, ESET’s Montréal research lab has yielded extraordinary results. Since its start, it has been conducting cutting-edge research projects with a specific focus on situational awareness of web-based threats and enhancing public understanding. 2014 saw the team recognized for its most influential work when it received the very first Péter Szőr Award for Best Technical Paper, Operation Windigo, at the 24th Virus Bulletin International Conference in Seattle, WA. The team also supported ESET in providing technical expertise and botnet tracking data to a global effort led by Microsoft to disrupt operation –and ultimately takedown- of the Dorkbot malware family, which infected over 1 million computers in 190 countries.

Further, ESET is entering the Romanian labor market, opening its first development center in Iasi. The company is planning to dedicate this center to development of ESET’s core and backend technologies.

“Iasi has quality universities and a talented workforce, so it matches our requirements for building strong and independent teams, responsible for improvements to existing products and technologies, as well as for developing new ones,” Malcho explained the reasons behind the choice of this location.

ESET currently employs more than 1300 professionals worldwide. Its global headquarters is located in Bratislava (Slovakia), with regional distribution centers in San Diego, Buenos Aires, and Singapore, as well as additional sales, marketing, and research and development sites distributed globally. ESET also maintains a network of partners spanning more than 200 countries and territories.