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DarkMatter Group
DarkMatter Group is a computer security company founded in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2014 or 2015. The company has described itself as a purely defensive company; however, in 2016, it became a contractor for Project Raven. It has employed former U.S. intelligence operatives.
DarkMatter was founded in either 2014 or 2015 by Emirati business man Faisal al-Bannai, the founder of mobile phone vendor Axiom Telecom and the son of a major general in the Dubai Police Force. Zeline 1, a wholly owned subsidiary of DarkMatter, became active in Finland around 2014.
DarkMatter's public launch came in 2015, at the 2nd Annual Arab Future Cities Summit. At this time, the company advertised capabilities including network security and bug sweeping, and promised to create a new, "secure" mobile phone handset. It promoted itself as a "digital defense and intelligence service" for the UAE.
In 2016, DarkMatter replaced CyberPoint as a contractor for Project Raven. Also in 2016, DarkMatter sought smartphone development expertise in Oulu, Finland, recruiting several Finnish engineers.
By early 2018, DarkMatter's turnover was hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars. Eighty percent of its work was for the UAE government and related organizations, including the NESA. It had developed a smartphone model called Katim, Arabic for "silence". DarkMatter was an official provider for the Expo 2020, but has since been dropped in favour of a different company.
In 2021, DarkMatter's cyber activities had already been transferred to Digital14, which has been distributing the secure communications system 'Katim'.
In addition to recruiting via conventional routes such as personal referrals and stalls at trade shows (e.g. Black Hat), DarkMatter headhunted staff from the U.S. National Security Agency and "poached" competitors' staff after they were contracted to the UAE government, as happened with some CyberPoint employees.
The company reportedly hired graduates of the Israel Defense Force technology units and paid them up to US$1 million annually.
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DarkMatter Group
DarkMatter Group is a computer security company founded in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2014 or 2015. The company has described itself as a purely defensive company; however, in 2016, it became a contractor for Project Raven. It has employed former U.S. intelligence operatives.
DarkMatter was founded in either 2014 or 2015 by Emirati business man Faisal al-Bannai, the founder of mobile phone vendor Axiom Telecom and the son of a major general in the Dubai Police Force. Zeline 1, a wholly owned subsidiary of DarkMatter, became active in Finland around 2014.
DarkMatter's public launch came in 2015, at the 2nd Annual Arab Future Cities Summit. At this time, the company advertised capabilities including network security and bug sweeping, and promised to create a new, "secure" mobile phone handset. It promoted itself as a "digital defense and intelligence service" for the UAE.
In 2016, DarkMatter replaced CyberPoint as a contractor for Project Raven. Also in 2016, DarkMatter sought smartphone development expertise in Oulu, Finland, recruiting several Finnish engineers.
By early 2018, DarkMatter's turnover was hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars. Eighty percent of its work was for the UAE government and related organizations, including the NESA. It had developed a smartphone model called Katim, Arabic for "silence". DarkMatter was an official provider for the Expo 2020, but has since been dropped in favour of a different company.
In 2021, DarkMatter's cyber activities had already been transferred to Digital14, which has been distributing the secure communications system 'Katim'.
In addition to recruiting via conventional routes such as personal referrals and stalls at trade shows (e.g. Black Hat), DarkMatter headhunted staff from the U.S. National Security Agency and "poached" competitors' staff after they were contracted to the UAE government, as happened with some CyberPoint employees.
The company reportedly hired graduates of the Israel Defense Force technology units and paid them up to US$1 million annually.