Performances
RD Popularity Index
RD Growth Index
Comparison
Follow Updates
Follow Lists
People
About Halborn
Halborn is a blockchain cybersecurity firm focused on offensive security, offering services such as smart contract audits, penetration testing, red teaming, and incident response. Its core strength lies in going beyond standard code reviews to simulate real-world attacks, covering layer-1 protocols, wallets, and DeFi applications. The market pain point it addresses is the prevalence of hacks and exploits in crypto, often caused by logic flaws or operational weaknesses rather than simple coding errors. Halborn helps projects identify these vulnerabilities before attackers do, reducing the risk of fund loss and reputational damage.
In the past six months (March to September 2026), Halborn has expanded its focus toward institutional adoption. It partnered with Fuze, a regulated digital asset infrastructure provider, to help banks and fintech companies build secure digital asset services. This collaboration combines Fuze's regulated infrastructure with Halborn's security expertise, aiming to create a framework for secure-by-design deployments. Halborn also published research on AI agent financial security threats, highlighting emerging risks in AI-driven finance. While no major incidents involving Halborn itself were reported, the company has been actively positioning itself at the intersection of traditional finance and blockchain security, responding to the growing demand for robust security in institutional crypto adoption.
Founded in 2019 by ethical hacker Steven Walbroehl and growth hacker Rob Behnke, Halborn bootstrapped into a leading Web3 security firm. In July 2022, it closed a $90M Series A led by Summit Partners—its first external funding—with participation from Castle Island, DCG, Brevan Howard, and others, marking its transition from boutique to scale-up.
In March 2022, Halborn uncovered the 'Rab13s' vulnerability cluster affecting Dogecoin, Litecoin, Zcash, and 280+ networks, putting over $25B in assets at risk. The coordinated disclosure with affected chains established Halborn's reputation for finding deep, cross-ecosystem bugs.
In September 2024, founders handed the CEO role to Jacques Boschung, a traditional cybersecurity veteran, signaling a strategic pivot toward enterprise and institutional adoption of DLT and tokenization. This became concrete in 2026 with a joint advisory program with The Vault, targeting banks building digital-asset infrastructure—positioning Halborn as an independent validator bridging TradFi and DeFi.
In April 2026, Halborn partnered with VerifiedX and Merkle Science to provide comprehensive code audits, security validation, and compliance intelligence for VerifiedX's institutional-grade digital asset platform. This helped VerifiedX onboard exchanges such as Crypto.com within three months and activate liquidity, showcasing an integrated security-plus-compliance service model.
Halborn also launched a joint advisory program with institutional custody provider The Vault, independently validating the security and risk framework of custody and treasury architecture for banks and financial institutions, further expanding into traditional finance.
Looking ahead, Halborn emphasizes institutional baselines including ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2 Type II, and NIST CSF 2.0 alignment, while focusing on tokenization, CBDC pilots, and hardening enterprise DLT infrastructure. It continues to expand coverage across multi-VM ecosystems such as Solana, Cosmos, and Move-based chains.
Co-founders & current core executives:
Rob Behnke: Co-founder, Executive Chairman & President; former CEO (2019-2024), leading strategy and growth.
Steven Walbroehl: Co-founder, CTO/CISO; 15+ years in cybersecurity, former VP of Web Application Security at IBM, author/instructor of SANS SEC554.
Jacques Boschung: CEO since Sep 2024; former CEO of Kudelski Security, driving strategic growth and innovation.
Gabi Urrutia: SVP Security & Field CISO.