Patch Management , Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing (VA/PT)

Absolute Purchases Syxsense to Tackle Cyber Vulnerabilities

Absolute Security acquired an endpoint and vulnerability management provider founded by a serial entrepreneur to simplify patching and remediation issues through automated workloads.

The Seattle-based cyber resilience vendor said its buy of Newport Beach, California-based Syxsense will reduce breaches related to misconfigurations by applying proper vulnerability management. CEO Christy Wyatt said Syxsense clients will benefit from Absolute's persistence platform, which ensures continuous compliance and operational integrity of devices even when security apps fail or become corrupted.

"We spend a tremendous amount of money as an industry on prevention and protection," Wyatt told Information Security Media Group. "We don't spend nearly enough on making sure that things are resilient and still working."

Syxsense was founded in 2012, employs between 80 and 90 people and raised $6 million from Oquirrh Ventures and Origami Capital Partners. The company has been led since November 2019 by Ashley Leonard, who previously served as CEO of IT management provider Verismic as well as the founder and CEO of infrastructure management provider NetworkD and computer networking firm Genisys (see: Crosspoint Capital to Purchase Absolute Software for $657M).

What Syxsense Brings to the Table

Wyatt said the integration between Absolute and Syxsense will boost the company's ability to address endpoint vulnerabilities and automate remediation, making customers more resilient to both attacks as well as misconfigurations. Absolute already worked with Syxsense as a licensing partner, and Wyatt said Syxsense's workflow automation and Absolute's self-healing technology complement each another.

"There is just a natural adjacency between what we do with self-healing and what they're doing in terms of detecting configuration vulnerabilities, patching vulnerabilities, and then building automated workflows for how you fix it," Wyatt said.

Syxsense's emphasis on automated workflows and proactive remediation of issues has helped the company stand out in the crowded vulnerability management market since automation saves enterprises time and reduces the complexity associated with security and compliance. Wyatt said Absolute and Syxsense will work together to automate remediation and patch management, especially with remote devices.

"They've found ways for a lot of customers to proactively remediate," Wyatt said. "They can create custom workflows. They can inject approvals into those workflows. It's very much oriented around how we save the enterprise organization time and money and maintain a high level of compliance and resiliency."

Persistence Pays Off

Absolute relies on technology embedded in the BIOS of more than 600 million devices for persistence, which allows it to operate independently of other applications and enables devices to self-heal from any misconfigurations or failures. The acquisition can help improve device management at a firmware level, and ensuring ongoing compliance and functionality is important amid increased cyberattacks, Wyatt said.

"If you have an instance where an application goes offline or becomes corrupted, the system can automatically fix it," Wyatt said. "It will observe that the control is going to be compromised, and then we'll reconfigure it, reinstall it, repair it or whatever it needs."

Absolute customers will gain Syxsense's proactive tools for patch and configuration management, while Syxsense customers will benefit from Absolute's visibility and control capabilities, Wyatt said. Although Absolute isn't a "growth at any cost" company, Wyatt said the company will continue to explore M&A opportunities that align with their strategy, such as the $340 million purchase of NetMotion in July 2021.

"We have a view on what the world should look like three to five years from now, and I think we were always looking for opportunities to accelerate that view," Wyatt said. "And when we find a compelling partner or a compelling technology stack, we're always open to exploring them."