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Private company

Defence Intelligence

Canadian information security company

Defence Intelligence, often referred to as Defintel, is an information security company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The company characterizes itself as offering services for "advanced compromise protection. " Their marketing materials describe their services as being for the detection and prevention of compromised systems on a network, and include their Nemesis Compromise Protection (Nemesis) and Harbinger Compromise Assessment (Harbinger) services.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

2008Founded1
  • HeadquartersOttawa1

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Defence Intelligence, often referred to as Defintel, is an information security company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The company characterizes itself as offering services for "advanced compromise protection." Their marketing materials describe their services as being for the detection and prevention of compromised systems on a network, and include their Nemesis Compromise Protection (Nemesis) and Harbinger Compromise Assessment (Harbinger) services.2

The story

Defence Intelligence was founded in 2008 by Christopher Davis, a Canadian security consultant who had previously aided in identifying an 18-year-old hacker in 2000 that stole 26,000 credit card numbers from e-commerce sites. Chris Davis collaborated along with Dan Kaminsky to inform key agencies in the Canadian government about the DNS cache poisoning flaw. Prior to founding Defence Intelligence, Davis was the director of threat analysis for the Atlanta-based security company Damballa (company).

In 2008, Defence Intelligence discovered the Mariposa botnet, one of the largest known botnets to date. In 2009, the Mariposa Working Group was formed. The MWG, consisting of members from Defence Intelligence, Panda Security, Neustar, Directi, and Georgia Tech Information Security Center, worked with international law enforcement to dismantle the botnet and aid in the arrest of the suspected creator and controllers of the botnet.

In 2011 Keith Murphy, founder and president of non-profit One Dollar Nation, became CEO of Defence Intelligence. While no formal press release was made stating this change, numerous news articles began referring to Keith Murphy as CEO. In that same year the company released Nemesis 2.0, the most current version of their main service and launched a new website with updated branding.

From Wikipedia’s article on Defence Intelligence (company), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

  1. 2008Founded Founded1

Sources

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