Tenable agrees to acquire Bit Discovery

Tenable Holdings, Inc. (“Tenable”), a Cyber Exposure company, announced the acquisition of Bit Discovery, Inc. (“Bit Discovery”), an external attack surface management (EASM) company. 

Tenable claims that when its Cyber Exposure solutions are combined with Bit Discovery’s EASM capabilities, customers will have a differentiated 360-degree view of the modern attack surface – both inside out and outside in – to identify and eliminate areas of known and unknown security risk.

Discovering and understanding every aspect of a company’s digital footprint is a necessary step in any effective cybersecurity program. Given the reliance on critical internet-facing services, applications, and APIs, discovery has never been more important. Most organizations are largely unaware of the full and ever-changing scope of internet-facing assets and services. Bit Discovery eliminates this problem with its powerful EASM solution by continuously monitoring the Internet, allowing customers to quickly discover and identify all externally facing assets that could become exploitable targets for cyber criminals.

Tenable will use Bit Discovery’s EASM solutions across its entire portfolio, from enterprise vulnerability management (VM) to Nessus, from cloud to operational technology (OT) to identity, following the closing. Customers will be able to assess the security posture of their entire attack surface and understand each of these in the context of an attack path that may exist from external systems to critical assets once integrated. Tenable will provide a comprehensive view of vulnerabilities and cyber risk by covering both external and internal assets, allowing customers to prioritize remediation efforts and minimize cyber exposure.

“Whatever is visible on the internet is very likely to be the first target and the hardest thing for organizations to continuously see and assess. We believe attack surface management is vital to modern cybersecurity and an integral part of our vulnerability and Cyber Exposure solutions,” said Glen Pendley, chief technology officer, Tenable. “We are seamlessly combining previously disjointed insights and empowering security practitioners to eliminate blind spots and easily understand their cyber exposure in ways previously not possible.”

“Bit Discovery’s founding mission is to help enterprises identify their internet-facing attack surface area and continually monitor and manage their exposure. Joining Tenable will give us the ability to instantly reach 40,000 global customers, accelerating our vision in ways that would have otherwise been impossible,” said Jeremiah Grossman, CEO and co-founder, Bit Discovery. “This capability combined with the insights provided by Tenable’s solutions is a compelling chance to change the market.” 

Jeremiah Grossman and Robert Hansen co-founded Bit Discovery. Grossman, who also founded WhiteHat Security, has spent approximately 20 years in information security, during which time he has become an industry luminary. Hansen previously worked as a security pioneer at eBay, where he was in charge of authentication as well as anti-fraud and anti-phishing technologies.

Under the terms of the agreement, Tenable will acquire Bit Discovery for a total purchase price of $44.5 million in cash, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. The acquisition is expected to close later in the second quarter of 2022, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Tenable’s financial results in the second quarter are not expected to be significantly impacted by Bit Discovery. Revenue is not expected to be significant in the second half of the year, but Bit Discovery is expected to add $2 million to $3 million in Calculated Current Billings, primarily in the second half of the year, and $2 million to $3 million in non-GAAP Net Loss.