ParetoLogic is one of those success stories that starts with young entrepreneurs working out of a basement (think Bill Gates) who blast into business at an astonishing speed.

The Victoria company was named the 17th fastest-growing technology company in Canada in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards announced this week. ParetoLogic develops security and other types of software to help PC users at home.

Five years ago, revenues were $3.9 million — more than decent for a brand-new company operating out of Elton Pereira’s Gordon Head basement. Last year, revenues reached $88.4 million.

Pereira, president and chief executive, said yesterday the company’s goal is to “essentially build a global brand.”

Back in the first year, ParetoLogic had four founding family members and a few additional staff.

Now it has 145 employees, two locations, a subsidiary and plans for another offshoot next year.

The company was started by Pereira, brothers Adrian and Myron and brother-in-law Don Wharton.

Wharton is the chief operating officer, Adrian chief technical officer and Myron is in charge of sales and marketing.

ParetoLogic is about business and family. Father Julian Pereira showed his sons how to do business online — the company’s continuing focus. “He’s the one who kind of inspired us,” said Elton, 34.

The company’s initial product, XoftSpySE, was created to combat spyware, software that gathers information without the user being aware of it. ParetoLogic sold 350,000 applications in its first year. “We had instant cash flow from Day 1,” he said.

Today, ParetoLogic has seven millions customers world-wide and 155 million downloads of its software, Pereira said.

Software products include privacy controls for parents, data recovery and anti-virus technology. Products are designed to be simple to use, operate quickly and not take up much space in the computer’s system. ParetoLogic emphasizes customer support and service for average people at home, Elton said. “We are just trying to ensure that their PC experience is as positive as possible.”

Family members in the business and the staff are motivated and welcome challenges, he said. “They want to grow. They want to compete.”

RevenueWire, spun off from ParetoLogic three years ago, is an affiliate digital product network with 40 employees, Pereira said.

Coming up in the next year is a new business focusing on tracking any vulnerabilities in a business’s websites, Pereira said. The aim is to find and block any holes that hackers could use and then give the website customer a certified stamp for its order page, providing in turn, peace of mind to that firm’s customers with the aim of increasing sales.

ParetoLogic has collected several business honours. In June, it made Profit Magazine’s Profit 100 list, ranking 23rd among Canadian companies by comparing revenue growth between 2004 and 2009.

PRLog (Press Release) – Sep 23, 2010 – Hot on the heels of its Profit 100 ranking, ParetoLogic has claimed yet another honour in recognition of its rapid expansion.  ParetoLogic came in at number 17 in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50^TM, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in Canada, based on the percentage of revenue growth over five years.

“The past five years have taken us from our nascence to a position of significant growth and development,” said Elton Pereira, ParetoLogic’s Cofounder, President, and CEO. “My thanks go to our staff, our supporters, and the tech community of Greater Victoria, but most of all to our customers, who have brought us to where we are today.”

ParetoLogic develops security and utility software for the home PC user. In the five year period judged by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50^TM, the company has introduced over 10 different software products, expanded their staff three times over, and grown their revenues more than a dozen-fold. In that time they have garnered numerous awards from the Vancouver Island Advanced Technology Centre (VIATeC), from the Victoria Chamber of Commerce, the Branham300, the Profit Hot 50, and the Profit 100 among others, as well as industry recognition as a Microsoft Certified Partner.

To qualify for the Deloitte Technology Fast 50^TM ranking, companies must have been in business for at least five years, have revenues of at least $5 million, be headquartered in Canada, own proprietary technology, and conduct research and development activities in Canada. A panel of industry experts evaluate and judge companies based on four key criteria: competitive advantage; size, growth, and market attractiveness; management effectiveness and organization; and financial performance.

“We are delighted to appear alongside such successful Canadian IT companies,” said Pereira. “Victoria has become the most significant tech hub of the west coast, and we are proud to represent Victoria on a national level and beyond.”

Victoria, B.C. September 16, 2010 – In the second quarter of 2010, viruses and other malware attempted to execute over 540 million infections globally, according to a recent report from SecureList. To protect their users from the rising tide of threats, security software company ParetoLogic has rolled out its latest defence against viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious software. ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS version 7 provides enhanced threat detection and removal and adds new features to improve the user’s experience. As well as redesigning the interface, developers also dramatically improved scan times and system resource footprint.

Version 7 of ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS is notable for two significant technological advances. The first delivers enhanced rootkit removal. Rootkits act as “burrowing” malware, and entrench themselves so deep in a users system that they are some of the most difficult to remove.

“ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS now gives users state-of-the-art protection against these dangerous and stubborn infections,” said Elton Pereira, Co-founder, President and CEO of ParetoLogic. “We know that infections are on the rise, and paired with heuristic detection, our software will keep people safer than ever.”

So-called heuristic detection is the most recent development in security software, and the second of ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS 7′s advances. Rather than relying on a database of found and catalogued malware samples, heuristic detection is behavioural based.

“There are a large number of distinct varieties of malware, but their actual goals and methods of operation all follow a similar pattern,” explained Jean Taggart, Security Analyst at ParetoLogic. “Heuristic detection is able to recognize a suspicious file or process, even if that specific piece of malware was never programmatically analyzed, or examined by a malware researcher. This is achieved by looking at behaviour, or common traits.”

The ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS update also adds Windows® 7 support and a sleek interface to match the popular new operating system. Additional software improvements resulted in shorter scan times, and a lighter system footprint. These upgrades allow users to scan their system without slowing down their other applications or tasks.

Security Researcher Mila Parkour has discovered a new zero-day exploit affecting Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat.

In her blog she posted some information about the file, which was sent as an email attachment.

Adobe has published a security bulletin for CVE-2010-2883 but hasn’t released a fix yet.

We verified the exploit on a fresh Windows 7 machine with the latest version of Adobe Reader. Upon opening the PDF document, a malicious file is downloaded.

We recommend users to be extremely careful when opening up email attachments as well as keeping their AV up-to-date with real time protection enabled.