News
Tenable acquired Ermetic
September 2023 by Marc Jacob
Tenable Holdings, Inc. announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ermetic Ltd. (“Ermetic”), a fully integrated cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) company, and a leading provider of cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM). Tenable intends to integrate these capabilities into its Tenable One Exposure Management Platform to deliver market-leading contextual risk visibility, prioritization and remediation across infrastructure and identities, both on-premise and in the cloud.
Ermetic’s CNAPP delivers in-depth contextual analysis in simple terms and reveals toxic combinations, such as privileged access to publicly-exposed vulnerable workloads. Seamlessly combining Ermetic’s insights into Tenable One will extend Tenable’s offerings for hybrid environments.
In the public cloud, identities and entitlements are the greatest risk to cloud infrastructures and one of the hardest problems to solve. In fact, according to the 2022 Top Cloud Threats report by the Cloud Security Alliance, security experts cite identity-based threats as the top cloud security issue they face. Cloud complexity – including identity sprawl and layers of policies that often change – makes understanding access risk and permissions extremely difficult.
Expanding Tenable’s cloud security offering with Ermetic’s unified, multi-cloud CNAPP and industry-leading CIEM will give security teams context and prioritization guidance to make efficient and accurate remediation decisions. The highly-intuitive user interface will make it easy for security professionals of all cloud expertise levels to spot and quickly address risks. This approach solves a key industry challenge - managing an increasing volume of security data while contending with a massive skills gap in cybersecurity. With clear remediation instructions provided, security teams will no longer need to be cloud security experts to understand where the most urgent risks exist and what to do about them.
The unique combination of Tenable and Ermetic will give customers:
• Unified CNAPP - a unified and agentless solution that automates asset discovery, risk analysis, accelerated remediation and compliance. From shift-left Infrastructure as Code security to agent-based and agentless assessment for runtime environments, broad CNAPP capabilities will be delivered via an elegant user experience that minimizes complexity and speeds adoption.
• Powerful CIEM - a comprehensive solution for managing human and service identities for cloud infrastructure. It visualizes all identities and entitlements, using automated analysis to reveal and prioritize risks.
• Context-aware risk prioritization - context across all cloud and on-premises resources, including workloads, identities and data. Enhanced exposure management will extend visibility across the hybrid, multi-cloud attack surface.
• Simplified remediation - guidance on and automation of the remediation process that enables organizations to make rapid improvements in their security posture.
Founded in 2019, Ermetic is a leader in CIEM and identity centric unified cloud security platform capabilities. The company serves organizations of all sizes, including Fortune 50 companies, to mitigate access risk, secure cloud data, ensure compliance and accelerate organizational security efforts.
Under the terms of the agreement, Tenable will acquire Ermetic for approximately $240 million in cash and $25 million in restricted stock and RSUs, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. The acquisition is expected to close early in the fourth quarter 2023, subject to customary closing conditions. Tenable expects to fund the cash portion of the purchase price with existing cash.
Ermetic’s financial results in the fourth quarter 2023 are not expected to materially contribute to revenue or calculated current billings and are expected to increase non-GAAP operating expenses by $4-$6 million. Unlevered free cash flow in the fourth quarter is expected to be reduced by $14-$16 million, which includes $10-$12 million of acquisition-related costs and forgone interest income.
