Fortra
Fortra is an American cybersecurity company based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. The company was founded as Help/38 in 1982, rebranded as HelpSystems in 1988, and became Fortra in 2022. Fortra is owned by private equity firms TA Associates, Harvest Partners, Charlesbank Capital Partners, and HGGC.
History
Help/38 was founded in 1982 by Dick Jacobson. Help/38's first product, Robot/38, provided IT automation for the IBM System/38. In 1988, when IBM replaced the System/38 with the AS/400, the company became known as HelpSystems.In 1992, HelpSystems became the first software company in the United States to be certified under the ISO 9001 standard.
Between 2005 and 2018, HelpSystems experienced growth and multiple changes in ownership. Acquired by Summit Partners in 2005 and Audax Group in 2007, the company expanded its offerings through the acquisition of several software firms. Summit Partners repurchased a majority stake in 2012, followed by a series of acquisitions including Safestone, CCSS, and IBM's ShowCase business intelligence products.
H.I.G. Capital acquired the company in 2015. Subsequent additions of Tango/04 Computing Group, Linoma Software, and TeamQuest added real-time monitoring, secure file transfer, and IT service optimization solutions to HelpSystems' offerings. In 2018, private equity firm HGGC became the lead investor, and HelpSystems acquired Midrange Performance Group.
In 2023, Fortra collaborated with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit and Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center to combat the abuse of cracked, legacy copies of their Cobalt Strike software by cybercriminals for distributing malware, including ransomware. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York authorized the disruption of malicious infrastructure, enabling relevant ISPs and CERTs to take it offline.
In July 2024, Fortra collaborated with Europol in "Operation Morpheus" to dismantle nearly 600 IP addresses associated with the criminal use of Cobalt Strike. This effort, involving 27 countries and private sector partners, significantly enhanced global cybersecurity by mitigating the misuse of Fortra's software for malicious activities.
Acquisitions
HelpSystems expanded its cybersecurity capabilities in 2019 through the acquisition of Core Security and UK-based Clearswift. TA Associates and Charlesbank Capital Partners also became investors. In 2020, the company expanded further by acquiring data classification firms Titus and Boldon James and acquired cloud-based data protection provider Vera.In 2021, HelpSystems acquired several companies to expand its cybersecurity and data protection services, including FileCatalyst, Digital Defense, Beyond Security, Agari, PhishLabs, and Digital Guardian. During this time, private equity firm Harvest Partners SCF LP also acquired partial ownership in HelpSystems.
In 2022, HelpSystems expanded its portfolio with the acquisitions of Tripwire, Alert Logic, Terranova Security, and Outflank. These acquisitions extended Fortra's cybersecurity capabilities, adding solutions for IT security compliance, cloud-based security, security awareness training, and advanced threat detection respectively. In October of that year, PhishLabs by HelpSystems identified a weakness in Google Ads being used by attackers to target financial institutions. HelpSystems rebranded as Fortra in November 2022.