Maltego is the all-in-one investigation platform used by institutions such as the FBI and INTERPOL, financial organizations and half of the DOW 30 companies to conduct cyber investigations and analysis. Today, Maltego is excited to announce the acquisition of two great businesses by way of share acquisition: PublicSonar and Social Network Harvester. The acquisitions solidify our position as the all-in-one investigation platform for complex investigations and empowering impactful organizations in our target segments.
Since 2008, Maltego has empowered more than one million investigations worldwide, making it the most used cyber investigation platform in the world. It is our mission to build the ecosystem of tools, data, and people to enable every investigator to discover the truth.
The acquisition of Maltego by Charlesbank Capital Partners in April 2023 has helped accelerate Maltego’s growth and development. We have introduced browser-based investigation capabilities and simplified data access. These capabilities enable us to serve both novice and advanced investigators in various physical settings and with different collaboration needs.
Maltego x Social Network Harvester
Maltego and Social Network Harvester are often used in conjunction. While Maltego is used for research and pattern analysis, Social Network Harvester is used to collect and preserve court-ready social media data. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies go back and forth between the two tools to collect, research, analyze, cross-reference, and store evidence. Acquiring Social Network Harvester allows Maltego to streamline and broaden such workflow within one interface, providing a truly all-in-one platform to bring criminals to justice with more reliable, accurate evidence.
Maltego x PublicSonar
Similarly, PublicSonar is a platform Maltego customers often rely on to bring the power of open source intelligence (OSINT) into the physical security and public safety landscape. While Maltego is designed to support specialized OSINT investigations with cyber intelligence, PublicSonar leverages OSINT for large-scale, real-time monitoring and public safety management. The combination of Maltego and PublicSonar expands the capability for Maltego users to own and act on intelligence for real-life security objectives.
Maltego as an All-in-One Investigation Platform
“Today, we’re thrilled to expand the Maltego platform by welcoming PublicSonar and Social Network Harvester into our fold. Their exceptional products will further solidify our position as the world’s most used all-in-one investigation platform. I want to commend the exceptional teams behind these companies for building outstanding products for the public sector. As we integrate, our priority is ensuring continuity for all involved. We’re committed to a seamless transition, leveraging the strengths of each team to drive innovation and deliver unmatched value to our users.”
Philip Mayrhofer, Maltego CEO
Over the course of the next months, we will focus on ensuring a smooth integration between the products, brands, teams, and services of all three parties. We are convinced that these acquisitions will help us provide better investigative experiences and resources for all our users and customers, and we will continue to prioritize our customers’ and users’ needs throughout the process.
“We are excited to join the Maltego family, enhancing our Social Network Harvester with even more diverse resources. Our commitment to our users and their investigations remains our top priority. Together, we anticipate a future filled with positive impacts.”
Erik Nolte, CEO of Freezingdata (Social Network Harvester)
“Maltego and the Social Network Harvester complement each other perfectly and enable complex and in-depth investigations in a simple way. I have known Maltego for many years and am convinced that all customers will benefit considerably from the acquisition.”
Benno Krause, CEO & CTO of Freezingdata (Social Network Harvester)
“We are very excited to be incorporated by Maltego. Together, we can provide our clients with a diverse set of tools on a comprehensive platform. Through this collaboration, we eliminate bottlenecks for users and can provide solutions across the whole OSINT spectrum (from public safety to investigation). This will give our clients even more powerful tools to generate valuable insights on the point of decision making.”
Sjors van den Dries, CEO of CrowdSense (PublicSonar)
Maltego has become the go-to platform for making sense of massive datasets in cyber threat intelligence and law enforcement investigations. With the two acquisitions, we are excited to accelerate further to solidify the value of our platform for law enforcement on and behind the scenes of making the world a safer place.
About Maltego
Maltego empowers investigators to speed up and increase the precision of their investigations through easy data integration in a single interface, aided by powerful visualization and collaborative capabilities to quickly zero in on relevant information. Since its development in 2008, Maltego has empowered millions of investigations worldwide. Maltego is used by a broad audience, from security professionals and pen testers to forensic investigators, investigative journalists, and market researchers. Headquartered in Munich, Maltego has grown to over 100 employees in Germany and works with customers including the Federal Bureau of Investigations, INTERPOL, and major tech and service companies including half of the DOW 30.
About PublicSonar
PublicSonar was developed and founded in 2012 by a team led by Richard Stronkman and Hans Burghard. PublicSonar aims to simplify large-scale data analysis during the monitoring of public incidents, crises, or events. It is a real-time analytics platform for generating insights based on social media, news, and public blogs for incidents and trends that could impact public safety. PublicSonar, was acquired by Maltego in March 2024.
About Social Network Harvester
Social Network Harvester was developed and founded in 2015 by a team led by Benno Krause and Erik Nolte. The founders developed Social Network Harvester, a software solution for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing social media profiles, connections, and interactions, following years of experiences in internet investigations and fighting cybercrime. Social Network Harvester accelerates intelligence collection processes with automated online data collection capabilities and enables investigators to store such evidence effectively. Social Network Harvester was acquired by Maltego in March 2024.
