Tenable Announces Intent to Acquire Alsid

Tenable Holdings today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Active Directory security startup Alsid SAS for $98m in cash.

Alsid specializes in providing a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that monitors the security of Active Directory in real time. The company was founded in France in 2016 by two former incident responders from the French National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), Emmanuel Gras and Luc Delsalle. 

After securing €13m in Series A funding in 2019, Alsid entered into a period of growth. Once the planned acquisition has been completed, Alsid users will benefit from a more comprehensive approach to cybersecurity readiness, according to Gras, Alsid’s CEO. 

“We started Alsid to help organizations 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,” said Gras.

“Our approach has always focused on helping our customers anticipate future attacks so they can keep their business running as usual. 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.”

Tenable chairperson and CEO Amit Yoran said that the acquisition is timely as exploiting user privileges via Active Directory is a popular tactic among today’s cyber-attackers. 

“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. 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,” said Yoran.

“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.”

The acquisition is expected to close earlier in the second quarter of 2021, subject to regulatory approval. It will be Tenable’s second acquisition as a public company following the acquisition of Indegy in 2019.

Tenable Holdings today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Active Directory security startup, Alsid SAS, for $98 million in cash.

Alsid specializes in providing a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that monitors the security of Active Directory in real time. The company was founded in France in 2016 by two former incident responders from the French National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), Emmanuel Gras and Luc Delsalle. 

After securing €13m in Series A funding in 2019, Alsid entered into a period of growth. Once the planned acquisition has been complete, Alsid users will benefit from a more comprehensive approach to cybersecurity readiness, according to Gras, Alsid’s CEO. 

“We started Alsid to help organizations 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,” said Gras.

“Our approach has always focused on helping our customers anticipate future attacks so they can keep their business running as usual. 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.”

Tenable chairperson and CEO Amit Yoran said that the acquisition is timely as exploit user privileges via Active Directory is a popular tactic among today’s cyber-attackers. 

“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. 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,” said Amit Yoran.

“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.”

The acquisition is expected to close earlier in the second quarter of 2021, subject to regulatory approval. It will be Tenable’s second acquisition as a public company following the acquisition of Indegy in 2019.