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Clearlake and Francisco Partners Complete Acquisition of Black Duck Software, Formerly Known as Synopsys Software Integrity Group

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The standalone application security company continues its mission to help organizations build trust in their software to support innovation and business transformation

SANTA MONICA, Calif. and SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Clearlake Capital Group (“Clearlake“) and Francisco Partners announced today that they have completed their acquisition of the Synopsys Software Integrity Group, establishing the newly independent application security company as Black Duck Software, Inc. (“Black Duck”). The transaction with Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS), which was first announced on May 6, 2024, is valued at up to $2.1 billion, including up to $475 million in cash payable upon Clearlake and Francisco Partners achieving a specified rate of return in connection with one or more liquidity transactions.

The new Black Duck brand is inspired by its flagship software supply chain solution, Black Duck SCA, which has helped thousands of organizations around the world adopt open-source technology safely and securely for nearly 20 years.

As an independent company, Black Duck provides all the application security solutions previously available from the Synopsys Software Integrity Group. Black Duck’s mission is to help organizations build trust in their software so they can innovate and transform their businesses with new, emerging technologies like AI.

Veteran security leader Jason Schmitt, who joined Synopsys in 2020 as the general manager of the Software Integrity Group, will continue to lead Black Duck as its Chief Executive Officer. Black Duck also announced that it has appointed Joy Meier as Chief Human Resources Officer and General Counsel. The remainder of the existing Software Integrity Group’s leadership team will continue in their roles at Black Duck.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with Jason and the entire Black Duck management team as the company begins the next step of its journey as a standalone business,” said Brian Decker and Evan Daar, Partners at Francisco Partners. “Alongside Clearlake, we are excited to help extend the company’s leadership in the industry as a comprehensive next-generation application security testing provider. This next stage of growth will better serve its customers, while protecting their mission-critical software applications, and we are looking forward to bringing additional resources and expertise to keep accelerating its growth.”

“Black Duck provides critical technology that supports and enables enterprise-scale software development teams to protect their applications against rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats,” said Prashant Mehrotra, Partner, and Sean Courtney, Principal, at Clearlake. “We are committed to supporting Black Duck as it continues to innovate and address the increasing demands for cutting-edge application security solutions with the help of our O.P.S.® value creation framework.”

As a recognized market leader, Black Duck provides a comprehensive portfolio of application security products and services. As a newly independent company with a singular vision and focus, Black Duck is better positioned to deliver the leading solutions the market has come to expect.

“We’re excited to complete our transition from Synopsys to Black Duck with the support of Clearlake and Francisco Partners,” said Jason Schmitt, CEO of Black Duck. “I am proud of what we have accomplished to get here, and I am optimistic about our future as an independent company. With a comprehensive portfolio of application security solutions underpinned by differentiated technology and a talented team of experts, we enter the next phase of our journey with momentum and a renewed focus to help our customers build trust in their software.”

Black Duck’s portfolio, which has been named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Application Security Testing1 for seven consecutive years, includes:

Polaris™ SaaS PlatformCoverity® Static AnalysisBlack Duck Software Composition AnalysisWhiteHat™ Continuous Dynamic AnalysisSeeker® Interactive AnalysisDefensics® Protocol FuzzingSecurity Testing, Consulting, and Audit Services

For more information, read Jason Schmitt’s blog post and visit Black Duck’s new website: www.blackduck.com.

Evercore, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays acted as financial advisors to Clearlake and Francisco Partners. Sidley Austin acted as lead legal advisor to Clearlake and Francisco Partners. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett also advised Francisco Partners. J.P. Morgan served as financial advisor and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton served as legal advisor to Synopsys.

About Clearlake Capital
Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is an investment firm founded in 2006 operating integrated businesses across private equity, credit and other related strategies. With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with experienced management teams by providing patient, long-term capital to dynamic businesses that can benefit from Clearlake’s operational improvement approach, O.P.S.® The firm’s core target sectors are technology, industrials, and consumer. Clearlake currently has over $85 billion of assets under management and its senior investment principals have led or co-led over 400 investments. The firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA with affiliates in Dallas, TX, London, UK, Dublin, Ireland Singapore and Abu Dhabi, UAE. More information is available at www.clearlake.com.

About Francisco Partners
Francisco Partners is a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch 25 years ago, Francisco Partners has invested in more than 450 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. With approximately $45 billion in capital raised, the firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information on Francisco Partners, please visit www.franciscopartners.com.

About Black Duck Software, Inc.
Black Duck Software, formerly known as the Synopsys Software Integrity Group, offers a comprehensive portfolio of application security testing solutions. The company helps organizations around the world secure their software quickly, integrate security efficiently in their development environments, and safely innovate with new technologies. To learn how Black Duck can help you build trust in your software, visit www.blackduck.com.

1. Gartner, Inc. “Magic Quadrant for Application Security Testing” by Mark Horvath, Dale Gardner, Manjunath Bhat, Ravisha Chugh, Angela Zhao, May 17, 2023.

Media Contacts:

Contacts:

Clearlake: 
Jennifer Hurson
Lambert
jhurson@lambert.com 

Francisco Partners:
Whit Clay / Jake Cohen
Sloane & Company
wclay@sloanepr.com / jcohen@sloanepr.com 

Black Duck:
Liz Samet
Black Duck Software, Inc.
336.414.6753
esamet@blackduck.com

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SOURCE Clearlake Capital Group

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Alethios Unveils a Comprehensive Decentralized Data Collection Suite for Human Health Research

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Live, no-code integrations let researchers combine participant-reported outcomes, wearables and sensors, AI-powered digital biomarkers, and at-home lab tests in a single study at a fraction of the cost of traditional research.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Alethios, the software platform delivering research infrastructure for human health, today launched a comprehensive suite of decentralized data collection tools. Researchers can now combine participant-reported outcomes, wearable and sensor data, digital biomarkers, and at-home biomarker testing in a single study, without writing code, managing multiple vendors, or requiring clinic visits.

Alethios powers studies across nutraceuticals, functional foods, academia, consumer health, medical devices, biotech, and the life sciences. Study designs range from consumer perception studies to pivotal, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials all run on the same software platform. Customers  including Givaudan, Thorne, PLT Health Solutions, Applied Food Sciences, Hofseth BioCare, Helaina, Samphire Neuroscience, and Sonoran University use the platform to generate rigorous evidence from participants’ homes. The new integrations build on the company’s founding belief that rigorous, multimodal research should be within reach for teams of every size and budget, across the human health ecosystem.

The suite spans four layers of data, each available as a no-code integration within the Alethios Study Planner and Study Operator:

Reported data: participant-submitted photo, video, audio, and text, plus a library of clinically validated instruments, both publicly available and licensed.Generated health data: personal wearables and health platforms including Apple Watch, Google Health, Garmin, Oura, Whoop, and Fitbit, and sensors including Abbott’s continuous glucose monitors and Withings and InBody bioimpedance scales.Digital biomarkers: validated cognitive batteries powered by BrainHQ, skin health selfies for dermatology and cosmetic studies powered by Haut.ai, and 3D body composition scans powered by Prism Labs.At-home biomarker testing: dried blood spot cards, Tasso blood collection devices, and at-home microbiome kits. Standard panels, including male and female hormones, cardiovascular, metabolic, inflammation, vitamin D, and hydration, run through Choose Health. Next-generation tests include epigenetic clocks from Muhdo and TruDiagnostic, and gut and vaginal microbiome sequencing from GutID and other shotgun metagenomic sequencing partners.

Adding a data type takes a few clicks. In the Study Planner, researchers select the data types their study needs and place each one on the participant schedule. For at-home kits, Alethios can handle ordering, shipping, and unique ID verification to keep every sample matched with the right participant, and results flow back into the platform. Once a study is live, the Study Operator brings every data stream into one real-time monitoring dashboard.

Compliant Data Collection by Default

Every integration runs on the platform’s existing infrastructure, where validation and data integrity assurances are built in and each one is designed to encourage participant adherence without compromising data quality. Researchers can:

Schedule each integration on the study timeline, so every data point is accurately time-stamped.Tie completion and compliance to milestone-based tracking and compensation, for example releasing a $50 gift card once a participant’s kit is accessioned at the lab.Monitor adherence across multiple data types in real-time from the Study Operator, so missed wearable syncs, late surveys, or unreturned kits are caught before they turn into missing data.

Every data point is cleaned and aligned to its participant automatically, so research teams receive one analysis-ready dataset rather than stitching together exports from multiple vendors.

“We built Alethios for researchers across human health,” said Zeenia Framroze, Founder and CEO of Alethios. “There are so many new ways to collect data at home, and we want to give research teams the best of them, wherever they sit. Whether someone is designing a claims substantiation study for a supplement or running post-marketing surveillance for a drug, we want to make it easy to collect robust subjective and objective data from Alethiad participants around the nation. The better and more accessible data collection is, the more we move the needle on our understanding of all of human health.”

A Home for Next-Generation Health Measurement

“So many novel devices and at-home tests are being developed today,” said Gurpreet Atwal, CTO of Alethios. “We want Alethios to be the tool scientists and innovators use to rapidly develop and validate new methods of data collection, and the home for the newest, best-in-class technologies for measuring human health. With rapid recruitment through the Alethiad Participant Community, those technologies can be tested with diverse, representative participants from day one.”

Companies developing novel devices, tests, or digital biomarkers can apply to integrate with Alethios here.

About Alethios

Alethios is a software platform delivering research infrastructure for human health. Its AI-powered, full-stack software delivers the capabilities of a study team without the overhead. The platform unifies protocol design, IRB coordination, recruitment, participant management, multimodal data collection, and reporting for decentralized clinical trials. Principal investigators, sponsors, and CROs rely on Alethios to generate rigorous real-world evidence across human health industries, setting up a study in minutes with plans starting at $100 per month. Through the Study Planner, Study Operator, and the Alethiad Participant Community, research teams can use the software in a self-service, hybrid, or fully turn-key model, at a fraction of the cost of traditional research.Alethios is a 2026 Nutra Healthspan Innovator Award winner, a 2026 Vitafoods Europe Startup Challenge finalist, and a 2025 NutraIngredients-USA Startup Award finalist. Get started at Alethios.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alethios-unveils-a-comprehensive-decentralized-data-collection-suite-for-human-health-research-302916518.html

SOURCE Alethios, Inc.

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7 out of 10 Individuals Hit by Data Breaches Via Third Party, Kroll Finds

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Breaches at technology and insurance firms affected the most individuals
in Kroll cases, highlighting the wider damage a single incident can cause

NEW YORK, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Kroll, the leading independent provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, today revealed that two-thirds of organizations surveyed (69%) suffered a data breach in the past year. More than a third (34%) were breached more than once, according to its 2026 annual Data Breach Outlook.

Further analysis showed that financial services accounted for the largest share of organizations breached in Kroll’s cases, at 20%, but a single breach at a technology provider can expose data belonging to customers of hundreds of businesses that use its services.

Of the incidents handled by Kroll in the twelve months between June 2025 and June 2026, 69% of affected individuals were impacted by a third-party breach. 79% of those individuals were affected by a breach from the technology sector, which is significantly higher compared to the finance (9%), insurance (6%) or healthcare (5%) sectors.

Breaches at technology firms accounted for the largest number of affected individuals, followed by insurers, despite ranking seventh and ninth respectively for the total number of organizations breached.

Data and Trends from the Kroll Data Breach Outlook 2026

Repeated breaches are common. Of the 250 leaders surveyed by Kroll, 69% said their organization had suffered a breach in the previous 12 months, while 34% reported experiencing more than one.IT teams are far more concerned about third parties than senior leaders. More than half (54%) of IT and technology leaders identified vendor and third-party breaches as their biggest compliance risk, compared with 40% of C-suite executives and 30% of risk and compliance leaders.Third-party relationships complicate the response. Dependence on vendors was among the top four challenges leaders faced when making breach-response decisions, cited by 41% of respondents.A small number of breaches can have a wide impact. Technology ranked seventh for the number of organizations breached but first for the total number of individuals affected. Insurance ranked ninth for the number of organizations breached but second for the total number of individuals affected.

Denyl Green, Global Head of Breach Notification at Kroll says, “Kroll handles thousands of incidents every year. Across most of the major incidents we handled over the past year, a vendor, software supplier or service provider was the link between the initial breach and the organizations affected. One incident can reach businesses and individuals who have never dealt directly with the company where the compromise began.”

“As AI agents are given more access to systems and sensitive data, breach risk rises across both human on non-human identities. Data and identity governance are becoming even more complex, and we expect AI to feature more prominently in Kroll’s Data Breach Outlook next year, both as a tool used by attackers and as a source of exposure for businesses adopting it.”

“When a supplier is breached, every client needs to determine whose data was affected and whether customers and regulators need to be notified. The businesses that respond most effectively have already mapped their third-party relationships and the subsequent domino effect, with an agreed plan in place before an incident happens. That preparation can reduce both the complexity and the cost of managing a breach, as well as give greater peace of mind.”

Katherine Keefe, Global Cyber Insurance Industry Lead at Kroll says, “Kroll’s breach data shows a single supplier breach can trigger dozens or even hundreds of cyber insurance claims from businesses whose only connection is that they use the same provider. These scenarios exponentially increase potential cyber insurance losses compared to breaches affecting a single business.”

“Cyber underwriters are already responding, not only by more closely scrutinizing how businesses manage their suppliers, but also by identifying potential single points of failure which may be caused by vendors and suppliers serving wide swaths of industry. Cyber insurance claims teams managing aggregated losses are also impacted and require efficient incident response and breach notification best practices when multiple policyholders are affected by the same event.”

“Cyber insurers now know that identifying dependencies on common vendors is critical to assessing and minimizing the risk that one breach will impact many policyholders.”

Kroll’s Cyber and Data Resilience (CDR) practice guides organizations through cyber crises, from incident response and cyber risk strategy to process and software controls and managed security operations. Within CDR, the Data Breach team handles some of the largest and most complex notification programs in the world. Often serving as part of a broader cyber incident response, Kroll’s data breach notification services help organizations rapidly navigate multi-jurisdictional requirements, including call center and credit monitoring services, to meet regulatory obligations and protect their reputation. Learn more: https://www.kroll.com/en/services/cyber/breach-notification.

About the Data Breach Outlook 2026 report

The Data Breach Outlook 2026, launched in October 2026, draws on two sources: an analysis of data breach incidents handled by Kroll’s Cyber and Data Resilience practice between June 2025 and June 2026, and a companion survey of 250 risk and compliance leaders and C-suite executives and board members, conducted by Kroll in 2026, examining how organizations experience and respond to breach events, including the role of vendor and third-party relationships.

About Kroll

As the leading independent provider of financial and risk advisory solutions, Kroll leverages our unique insights, data and technology to help clients stay ahead of complex valuation demands. Kroll’s team of more than 6,500 professionals worldwide continues the firm’s nearly 100-year history of trusted expertise spanning risk, governance, transactions and valuation. Our advanced solutions and intelligence provide clients the foresight they need to create an enduring competitive advantage. At Kroll, our values define who we are and how we partner with clients and communities. Learn more at kroll.com.

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SOURCE Kroll Associates

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Innodisk Launches All-in-One GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit to Accelerate Edge AI Vision Deployment

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TAIPEI, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Innodisk, a leading global AI solution provider, today announced the Innodisk GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit, an all-in-one vision solution that bundles four 3MP GMSL2™ camera modules, a capture card, FAKRA cables, and other necessary accessories.

A milestone in Innodisk’s edge AI vision strategy, the kit lets customers set up a multi-camera system and begin validation right out of the box, shortening the path from proof of concept (PoC) to deployment. Full camera source code is included, giving customers flexibility throughout development and maintenance.

As AI vision moves toward multi-camera perception in robotics and intelligent vehicles, integrating cameras, capture cards, drivers, and host platforms has become increasingly complex, often taking six months or more before validation. The starter kit’s pre-integrated hardware and software driver enable system integrators to speed up time-to-market.

All-in-One Multi-Camera Integration for Faster Setup and Validation

GMSL2™ is a high-speed video transmission technology that originated in automotive applications and offers long-distance connectivity. Unlike plug-and-play USB cameras, it requires a dedicated capture card and platform-specific drivers. The starter kit includes four 3MP fixed-focus GMSL2™ camera modules, a capture card, four FAKRA cables, a power adapter, power cords, and a quick start guide. It also provides camera source code for the widely adopted NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, so users can bypass component sourcing, system-level integration, driver debugging, and tuning.

“The biggest challenge in a multi-camera AI vision project is often not the AI application itself, but the camera integration and system tuning that come before it,” said CK Hsu, Senior Manager of the Camera Product Business Department at Innodisk. “With the GMSL2™ Camera Starter Kit, Innodisk takes on the complexity of early-stage integration so customers can focus on development and move into PoC sooner.”

Source Code Included for Seamless Customization

With the camera source code in hand, engineering teams can independently adapt the software driver to their own requirements and use the kit as a working foundation for further development. Innodisk also provides comprehensive customization services from hardware fine-tuning to application deployment, helping customers move smoothly into design-in and mass production.

Expanding GMSL2™ Portfolio for Diverse Edge AI Scenarios

The kit supports edge AI scenarios including blind spot detection and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for heavy-duty vehicles, object recognition and environmental perception for humanoid robots and AMRs.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/innodisk-launches-all-in-one-gmsl2-camera-starter-kit-to-accelerate-edge-ai-vision-deployment-302916771.html

SOURCE Innodisk Corporation

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