Cyber exposure firm Tenable has announced it has struck a definitive agreement to acquire Active Directory security start-up Alsid SAS for $98m.
The Columbia, Maryland-based business said the acquisition will help organisations protect themselves from attackers that exploit user privileges via Active Directory, thanks to the provider’s software as a service (SaaS) solution.
Under the terms of the agreement, the takeover will go ahead for a total price of $98m and is expected to be completed by early in Q2 2021, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
“Tightly controlling the privileges of accounts in Active Directory is as foundational to reducing risk to the business as the basic blocking and tackling of deploying security updates,” commented Amit Yoran, chairman and CEO of Tenable.
“As we've seen with the flurry of hacks, ranging from the sophisticated SolarWinds compromise all the way down to common ransomware attacks, attackers go after the Active Directory infrastructure to increase access and establish persistence.
“We’re impressed with the insights that Alsid brings to enterprise customers and look forward to working with the Alsid team to add this critical element to Cyber Exposure and risk management.”
Alsid for Active Directory offers an on-premises deployment option that monitors the security of Active Directory in real time. The offering is designed to find and fix weaknesses with dynamic threat scoring, complexity ratings, and recommended actions.
It also continuously discovers new attack pathways and detects ongoing attacks in real time, recommending remediations without the need to deploy agents or leverage privileged accounts.
Alsid was founded back in 2016 by Emmanuel Gras and Luc Delsalle, two former incident responders from the French Nation Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI). In 2019, the firm received $13m in Series A funding to help its expansion into new markets such as the UK.
“We started Alsid to help organisations solve one of the biggest security challenges, an unprotected Active Directory, which is one of the most common ways for threat actors to move laterally across enterprise systems,” explained Emmanuel Gras, CEO and co-founder of Alsid.
“Our approach has always focused on helping our customers anticipate future attacks so they can keep their business running as usual. “
As part of the acquisition, Gras and Delsalle will join Tenable in senior leadership roles that focus on continuing the development of innovative Active Directory solutions, as well as expanding into new global markets.
“We believe Tenable cherishes this same vision of cybersecurity, and we’re excited to join forces and to have the opportunity to provide our users with a better, more complete approach to cyber preparedness,” Gras added.
