Defence Intelligence

Defence Intelligence, founded in 2008 by CEO Chris Davis and based in Ottawa, Ontario, is a network and DNS security vendor best known for discovering the Mariposa botnet in 2008-2009, at the time one of the largest botnets ever identified, spanning an estimated 8 to 12 million infected machines. The company helped the international Mariposa Working Group, alongside Panda Security, Neustar, Directi, and the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, coordinate its takedown, work that earned the company a Global Hero Award from the Digital Crimes Consortium.

The company’s current commercial product line, marketed as Nemesis and Valkyrie, is a DNS-layer security and firewall offering that identifies compromised systems and blocks command-and-control communication, phishing, and malware delivery by filtering DNS requests against continuously updated threat intelligence, a lightweight, network-level control that does not require endpoint agent deployment.

Defence Intelligence has stayed small and independent for 17-plus years, with employee estimates ranging from roughly 18 to 34 depending on source, and no disclosed venture or private equity funding found. That longevity without a growth-capital event suggests a niche, steady-state trajectory rather than a scaling product company, even though its botnet-research pedigree remains a genuine, independently documented credential.