After a North American casino suffered a cyberattack a few years ago, investigators sent to analyze the breach quickly found the culprit: a fish tank, whose internet-connected temperature sensor was hacked, giving cyber criminals access to the casino’s network.
The now infamous incident illustrates a critical cybersecurity challenge of our times: modern enterprises have thousands of connected devices, from security cameras to HVAC systems, that were not built with security in mind. Each presents a potential vulnerability and entry point for hackers.
Few understand this challenge better than Forescout Technologies. It pioneered an “agentless visibility” technology that allows organizations to monitor disparate networks without having to deploy software to the thousands of connected devices on those networks. This allows organizations to classify risk, detect anomalies, and remediate cyberthreats without disrupting their critical operations.
Forescout is now developing a new generation of products to secure the Enterprise of Things and allow organizations to actively assess risk and defend all of their connected devices in real time. And Forescout is continuing its transition to the cloud and the transformation of its go-to-market approach to align with the subscription model of modern SaaS companies.
Wael Mohamed
CEO, Forescout
These changes are poised to unlock massive value for Forescout and its customers, but require sizable investments and patience, which can be difficult to sustain as a public company. That’s why Advent was an ideal partner to back Forescout and accelerate its path forward.
We acquired Forescout and took it private in 2020, in partnership with Crosspoint Capital Partners. The Advent team includes veteran investors in cybersecurity who are intimately familiar with the security needs of large organizations and have the industry know-how and operational skills to pull off the Forescout transformation.
Working with new CEO Wael Mohamed, a visionary cybersecurity executive, and Crosspoint’s founder, Greg Clark, the former CEO of Symantec, we have helped the company move quickly toward its ambitious goals. Forescout has ramped up investment in R&D and is thinking more freely about product innovation.
We’ve gained flexibility in decision-making and, working closely with management, are accelerating the conversion of Forescout’s product and go-to-market approach. We believe Forescout has become a nimbler, more efficient company: one even better equipped to push the cutting edge in the battle against cybercriminals.
