BitSight Closes Record Year as Industry Analysts Recognize Security Ratings as Critical Component to Risk Management

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BitSight, the Standard in Security Ratings, today announced a record 2017 with over 90% worldwide sales growth, 75% customer growth and 96% customer satisfaction, further validating market leadership. BitSight pioneered the security ratings market in 2011, as the first company to offer a security ratings product. Organizations worldwide use BitSight's proven Security Ratings technology on a daily basis to make integral risk and business decisions. Having amassed over 1,000 customers and the largest ecosystem of users and information, BitSight continues to be the most widely used Security Ratings Service.

According to Gartner, "By 2022, cybersecurity ratings will become as important as credit ratings when assessing the risk of business relationships." The report continues, "Over the next six years, these [cybersecurity rating] services will become a mandatory precondition for a growing number of business relationships and part of the standard of due care for providers and procurers of services. These cybersecurity scores will impact the degree to which other companies engage in high-value business with the organization. These scores will have an impact on cost/availability of cyberinsurance."¹

"After focusing on educating the industry and building the security ratings market for the last six years, we feel that it is extremely rewarding to see organizations like Gartner address the significance of BitSight's offering within third-party risk management in their report," stated Tom Turner, CEO of BitSight. "But our own work in this area is not done. Although we completed a record year in 2017, we know that there is a greater opportunity for BitSight. With plans to increase our worldwide employee base by 50%, dedicating additional resources to product innovation, research and customer success, BitSight is poised for further market disruption. The value BitSight brings will continue to increase as we help organizations to not only better understand their risk, but prioritize and allocate resources to minimize risk and maximize the value of their efforts."

BitSight Continues to Lead the Security Ratings Market

• Over 90% worldwide sales growth, including international growth of 115%.
• Over 75% customer growth, including 20% of the Fortune 500, 7 of the largest 10 cyber insurers, 3 of the top 5 investment banks, and all of the "Big Four" consulting and advisory firms.
• Strong adoption and validation by the Financial Services industry, with growth to approximately 25% of total customers.
• Over 140% year-over-year growth of channel-based business.
• Largest, most engaged ecosystem with 110,000+human validated rated organizations, 15,000+ comments regarding the security posture of organizations worldwide, and 20,000+ unique users that continuously enrich BitSight Security Ratings by reviewing, testing and annotating the data daily.
• Strengthened executive team with several key hires, recently adding Mary-Jo Porcello, Vice President of People and Talent, and Eric Fischer, Senior Vice President of Sales, to help drive and support rapid employee and customer growth.
• Driving force behind the creation of the Principles for Fair and Accurate Security Ratings, along with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Stanley, Starbucks and Aetna, among others.

"A number of people have asked me why BitSight is so far ahead of the competition," said Shaun McConnon, Executive Chairman of BitSight. "While I credit our founders' vision in pioneering this market, it inevitably comes down to the people. We have an incredible, experienced, cohesive executive team that is committed to BitSight and our journey. Every executive has experienced tremendous success in the same or similar role at market-leading companies, like BitSight. Not to mention, almost half of these amazing men and women have previously worked together. Two great things come from this. First, understanding the customer is at the center of all decisions. Second, knowing what it takes to meet those customers' needs at scale. This amount of experience and cohesiveness enables us to quickly navigate the critical decisions needed to lead the market in product innovation and customer satisfaction."

Continued Product Innovation

• Sovereign Security Ratings provide the first objective measurement of national cybersecurity risk and are currently leveraged by five countries to monitor their entire critical infrastructure.
• New BitSight Executive Reporting engine enables the first easy and effective presentation of cybersecurity and vendor risk to board members and senior executives.
• New risk vectors, including the "first of its kind" desktop software and mobile device vectors, provide a more comprehensive picture of an organization's security posture.
• Further data science validates the correlation between BitSight Security Ratings and the likelihood of breach.
• Enhanced vendor collaboration and reporting capabilities give customers greater oversight and information needed to reduce cyber risk at scale across their supply chain.

Commitment to Unprecedented Objective Research

Since inception, BitSight has dedicated significant resources to research and development, providing customers with objective, verifiable and actionable security data that is highly correlated to breach.

• The Buck Stops Where? Assessing the Cybersecurity Performance of the Finance Supply Chain
• A Growing Risk Ignored: Critical Updates, exploring the prevalence of outdated systems and their link to data breaches
• How Secure Are America's Largest Business Partners? Rating the Cybersecurity Performance of the Fortune 1000

Additional Resources

• Take a tour of BitSight Headquarters.
• Find out how the BitSight Security Ratings platform can help align your vendor risk management program with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• Listen to the BitSight Risk Review Podcast series or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music.
• Watch BitSight's CTO Stephen Boyer discuss the Petya Ransomware Attack on CNBC.
• Read how BitSight stacks up against the competition in Forrester's Vendor Landscape: Third-Party Risk Intelligence.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About BitSight
BitSight is transforming how companies manage information security risk with trusted, time-tested and actionable security ratings. Founded in 2011, the company built its Security Ratings Platform to continuously analyze vast amounts of external data on security issues and behaviors in order to help organizations manage third party risk, underwrite cyber insurance policies, benchmark performance, conduct M&A due diligence and assess aggregate risk. Seven of the top 10 cyber insures, 20% of Fortune 500 companies, and 3 of the top 5 investment banks rely on BitSight to manage cyber risks. For more information, please visit www.bitsighttech.com, read our blog or follow @BitSight on Twitter.

¹ Gartner "Predicts 2018: Security and Risk Management Programs" by Rob McMillan, Jeffrey Wheatman, Richard Hunter, Mark Thomas Jaggers, Sam Olyaei, Jay Heiser, Jeremy D'Hoinne, November 16, 2017.

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SOURCE BitSight Technologies