Star Lab

Star Lab is an embedded-systems security software vendor founded in 2014 and based in Washington, DC, that builds anti-tamper and hardening software for mission-critical aerospace and defense platforms. Previously a subsidiary of Wind River Systems, Star Lab was acquired by Mercury Systems in May 2025 and now operates as part of Mercury’s Processing Technologies business unit, continuing to sell its software product line under the Star Lab name.

The company’s core products focus on protecting embedded Linux and virtualized systems from reverse engineering and data exploitation: secure boot to prevent unauthorized firmware or OS modification, Linux kernel and userspace hardening to reduce the attack surface of embedded operating systems, and virtualization security to isolate mission functions from each other on shared hardware. These are the kinds of controls defense programs need to deter, detect, and respond to attempts at extracting classified or export-controlled program information from fielded hardware — a requirement baked into many DoD acquisition programs.

Inside Mercury, Star Lab’s software is being integrated across Mercury’s rugged servers, embedded processing cards, mixed-signal cards, and avionics processing products, turning what was previously a standalone software vendor into an embedded capability inside a larger hardware business. That gives Star Lab’s technology a built-in distribution channel through Mercury’s existing defense primes relationships, though it also means Star Lab’s specific financial and customer metrics are no longer reported independently since the acquisition, and the company’s roughly 45-person team is now part of Mercury’s much larger organization.