Brno, Czech Republic, October 12, 2018 — Avast [LSE: AVST], the global leader in cybersecurity, has moved its Brno employees into new premises at the Vlněna office complex which brings the Silicon Valley standards and style of Avast’s offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, and its award-winning headquarters in Prague. Avast occupies around 8,000 square meters over four floors of the new building developed by CTP Invest, which uses environment-friendly technologies to provide ergonomic and comfortable working conditions for around 400 employees. The new modern building hosts the majority of Avast’s global Threat Labs team, most of whom are Czech, along with top engineering, product development, and research teams focusing on Artificial Intelligence technology implementation and Internet of Things (IoT) security.

“The Czech Republic is home to great engineering talent, and world leading technical universities. We have active partnerships with local universities to help us recruit highly skilled individuals for our developer and research teams. Our Brno office is an essential R&D hub within Avast, housing nearly 400 software engineers, threat researchers and IT specialists who are key innovation drivers for our worldwide business. We’re proud of our Czech roots, and the technological excellence we have been able to build from here, to protect people around the world. We have ambitious growth plans, and the Czech Republic continues to play a key part in our overall recruiting strategy,” said Vince Steckler, CEO at Avast. “As a global company, it’s also vital that we have consistent standards for our employees worldwide and I’m proud that these new offices are modelled after our other flagship offices including our Prague HQ, and the San Francisco Bay Area offices.”

The new office has been developed in the same high standards as the headquarters in Prague which was awarded ‘Most Employee-friendly Offices’ by Kanceláře roku, and ‘Most Attractive Workspace’ by Zasedačka roku in 2017. Gaining the prestigious ‘Excellent’ rating of the BREEAM Certificate which is held also by buildings in Silicon Valley, the Avast premises are the most modern ones in the Brno area in terms of their environmental, social and economic sustainability performance. The new office includes a free restaurant for breakfast, lunch and snacks for all employees, relaxation and fun zones, music room, gym, children’s corner and library, and offers sufficient space for the further growth of the Brno teams.

The R&D teams in the new state-of-the-art facilities focus on threat research, with a specialty in ransomware, and smart home security. An Avast Brno researcher, Martin Hron, just recently published an industry report warning how over 32,000 smart homes and IoT businesses are at risk of getting attacked by cyber criminals due to a misconfigured smart home protocol. For users, unsecured smart home devices can harbor major risks including the leak of personal data, becoming a target of ransomware, and even risks to physical security so this is a priority area for research. From its Brno hub, Avast is developing breakthrough solutions for IoT protection including Avast Smart Life, a universal solution that protects all connected devices to keep people’s homes secure and their lives private.