Quick Heal is a completely homegrown anti-virus software company that's not only beaten big, multi-billion dollar competitors like McAfee and Symantec, but is also taking back the fight to their turfs in other countries around the world. It has come a long way since 1995, when the first version was released for Rs 500, written entirely by Sanjay Katkar, 41, then fresh out of college. His brother, Kailash, 46, a computer repairs businessman, provided the funding and the support. In 2011, the profitable company brought in Rs 187 crore in revenue and employed over 550 people, including 120 in their own R&D centre. "They're growing like a weed while throwing out amazing cash flows. What a great business!" says Sumir Chadha, co-founder and managing director of Westbridge Capital, who is on the board of Quick Heal representing Sequoia Capital.
The man behind it
Kailash Katkar is a self-taught, self-made CEO and it shows. Eschewing fancy jargon, he prefers to focus on deep relationships with the people who matter in his business. With channel partners, for instance, he takes care of seemingly trivial things like "making sure we deliver 24 carat gold and not 18 carat", where gold is a prize as part of channel promotions. "Both Kailash and Sanjay have a lot of humility and their feet on the ground. They take care of their people too, as a result of which they have an incredibly loyal and motivated workforce. Their attrition is almost zero," says Chadha.
12:01 PM, Nov 12, 2012
Boston: A bug in an update of Symantec Corp's anti-virus software caused some Windows PCs to crash late this week, making machines inoperable until they were serviced in an embarrassing episode that angered some customers. The company disclosed the problem on its website, saying that an update to its widely used Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 and Norton anti-virus software for businesses caused some PCs running Microsoft Windows XP software to...
10:37 AM, Jul 14, 2012
New Delhi: Global security software giant Symantec in an independent research has found out a range of 96 applications on the Google Play store that are stealing personal and confidential information of users in Japan. Although these applications have been found to be in use in Japan, a similar scenario might also be working in other parts of the world as applications are sometimes not limited to just one country....
12:47 PM, Apr 23, 2012
New York: Hackers sought $50,000 from US anti-virus firm Symantec Corp in return for the stolen blueprints to its flagship products under what the company says was a sting operation run by an undisclosed law enforcement agency via emails. The company said the emails were in fact between the hacker and law enforcement officials posing as a Symantec employee. "The communications with the person(s) attempting to extort the payment from...
02:37 PM, Feb 07, 2012
Boston: Security software maker McAfee rejected a claim that several large corporate customers had recently switched over to using products from rival Symantec Corp. Symantec Chief Financial Officer James Beer told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday that his company was taking share in the anti-virus software market away from McAfee, which was purchased by chipmaker Intel Corp in February. Beer said that several large McAfee customers had switched...
01:56 PM, Jan 27, 2012
New Delhi: A hacker who goes by the name of 'Yama Tough' threatened Saturday to release next week the full source code for Symantec Corp's flagship Norton Antivirus software. "This coming Tuesday behold the full Norton Antivirus 1,7Gb src, the rest will follow," Yama Tough posted via Twitter. In the past week Yama Tough has released fragments of source code from Symantec products along with a cache of emails. The...
11:07 AM, Jan 15, 2012
Boston: A group of Indian hackers has offered support to an American man who filed a lawsuit against Symantec Corp by publishing source code from a 2006 version of Norton Utilities, a software program at the heart of the legal dispute. A spokesman for the group, which is known as "Lords of Dharmaraja," released more than 13,000 files that were part of the product's source code late on Friday. "Pass...
04:47 PM, Jan 14, 2012
New York: Indian authorities are investigating a computer server in Mumbai for links to the Duqu malicious software that some security experts warned could be the next big cyber threat. Web Werks, a Mumbai-based Web-hosting company, said it had given an image of the suspicious virtual private server to officials from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), after security firm Symantec Corp found the server was communicating with computers...
09:03 AM, Nov 08, 2011
Bangalore: A study by Symantec Corp, the maker of Norton computer security software, estimates the cost of global cybercrimes at $114 billion annually. The Norton Cybercrime Report 2011 said 431 million adults were victims globally in the past year, with costs of cybercrime surpassing the combined global black market in marijuana, cocaine and heroin. "Over the past 12 months, three times as many adults surveyed have suffered from online crime...
04:30 PM, Sep 08, 2011
Bangalore: Facebook users' personal information could have been accidentally leaked to third parties, in particular advertisers, over the past few years, according to Symantec Corp's official web blog. Third-parties would have had access to personal information such as profiles, photographs and chat, and could have had the ability to post messages, Symantec's web blog said. "We estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage,"...
08:11 AM, May 11, 2011
Helsinki: Targeted cyber attacks will pose a growing threat to companies around the world this year after the Stuxnet worm hit Iran's nuclear programme in 2010, security software maker Symantec Corp said on Tuesday. "Last year was the year of high-profile targeted attacks. We will see so many more," said Sian John, security strategist at Symantec. So-called targeted attacks succeed as most consumers avoid clicking on suspicious links in spam...
11:54 AM, Apr 05, 2011
Symantec, best known for its antivirus software for personal computers, wants to secure more things. ...
10:31 AM, May 21, 2010
According to a Symantec report, fake security software pose greatest threat to computer users in 2009. ...
04:23 PM, Apr 20, 2010
Spam email messages are used to infect PC's with malicious software. ...
11:58 AM, Dec 02, 2009
ScanSafe sells services that protect business computer networks. ...
02:03 PM, Oct 28, 2009
Underground personal details market now commands high rates, says Symantec. ...
10:47 PM, Sep 20, 2007
The hacking exposed thousands of job seekers to the risk of blackmail. ...
01:59 PM, Aug 23, 2007
