How do you bounce back from being sued by the world’s most valuable company? Ask Corellium CEO Amanda Gorton. After Apple launched a suit against her startup in 2019, alleging it had breached copyright in making virtual versions of iPhones for security testers, the company had to put much of its energy and focus into fending off the tech giant’s lawyers. In December, Corellium scored a significant win as one of Apple’s claims—that it infringed iOS copyright – was rejected by a judge. The other claim—that Corellium circumvented Apple security measures in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act—is still to be decided on. The same month it got its victory in court, Corellium was named product of the year in the inaugural Forbes Cybersecurity Awards. “We’re in a better spot than we were a year ago,” Gorton says. “We’ve had a lot of momentum.”

Corellium is pressing onwards to build what it hopes will be a virtual paradise for researchers looking for security weaknesses in Apple iPhones or its new M1 Macs, or any other ARM-based system. The company had already created software that could quickly spin up virtual versions of iPhones, as well as some Android models, so benevolent hackers could try to find problems in the devices, without having to worry about crashes ruining their test device. And this week, Corellium is announcing it has bought Azeria Labs, run by Forbes 30 Under 30 alum Maria Markstedter, one of the world’s leading security researchers when it comes to ARM designs. Her focus has always been to train researchers in the art of ARM exploitation, finding flaws deep at the chip level, ideally so they can be disclosed to the manufacturer and fixed. Now, as chief product officer of Corellium, she’ll be bringing that training into the Corellium tool, making it that much easier to find bugs in not just…