IBM Acquiring Randori

IBM‘s big news at RSA is that it’s acquiring Randori, an attack surface management (ASM) and offensive cybersecurity provider. Randori helps clients continuously identify external-facing assets, both on-premises or in the cloud, that are visible to attackers, and prioritize exposures which pose the greatest risk.

IBM said this acquisition further advances its hybrid cloud strategy and strengthens its portfolio of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered cybersecurity products and services.

Randori is IBM’s fourth acquisition in 2022. IBM has acquired more than 20 companies since Arvind Krishna became CEO in April 2020.

Chris Meenan is vice president of IBM Security product management.

“With Randori, our partners and IBM, [we] can demonstrate existing gaps in security monitoring and response functions, to customers in a clear and frictionless way,” he said. “Today, many organizations are struggling with finding the time and skills to understand the attacker’s perspective, and in turn, the top priorities for security teams. Randori helps solve this problem. For one, the actionable insights from Randori’s Recon product and attack automation capabilities help address new issues uncovered by Randori’s technology.”

IBM sees an integrated ASM function helping to drive more value and focus from an extended detection and response (XDR) system, Meenan said.

“By bringing in the attacker’s perspective, ASM helps ensure that XDR capabilities are addressing the threats that pose the greatest risk,” he said. “For example, many organizations are leveraging MITRE ATT&CK as a way to operationalize how they respond to threats. The challenge, however, lies in determining how to prioritize what tactics and techniques they need to collect telemetry, and monitor for. With Randori, we can now use that same approach and leverage MITRE ATT&CK to operationalize their defense and threat detection processes. Furthermore, by closely integrating Randori’s technologies with detect and response capabilities in XDR, organizations can leverage additional context both ways to drive more informed and faster decisions.”

Gavin Osters is Randori’s director of channel management.

“Randori has built a robust channel program with leading national and regional VARs,” he said. “We are excited to continue to invest in the channel and see many ways they could benefit through a closer relationship between Randori and IBM.”