BitSight’s FY2021 results signal strong opportunity for security ratings in government, investment and insurance verticals
BOSTON — March 9, 2021 — BitSight, the Standard in Security Ratings, announced that the company closed its fiscal year ending January 31 (FY2021) with record annual recurring revenue, record growth in platform data and usage, and over 500 new customers as the BitSight customer portfolio now includes 20% of the Fortune 1000. The BitSight Security Rating was also used by 20% of the world’s governments in 2020 and is currently available on over 40 million organizations worldwide.
BitSight’s solutions are based on the industry’s broadest, most unique, and most credible collection of cybersecurity performance data. In FY2021, BitSight:
- Increased its total data collection to 44 trillion records. BitSight now processes 260 billion high-confidence, high-quality security findings for customers every day to provide an accurate view of an organization’s current and historic security performance;
- Saw community-added data grow by 161% year-over-year, delivering greater context and enhancing ratings quality;
- Provided critical telemetry in partnership with Microsoft and law enforcement to disrupt the world’s largest online criminal network; and
- Implemented a Policy Review Board to validate and evolve its rating methodology with feedback from rated companies, further demonstrating BitSight’s commitment to transparency.
BitSight’s increase in content and context has also increased the platform’s active users by 85% since 2020. The dramatic up-tick in activity comes as BitSight and Solactive shared definitive research that a company’s cybersecurity performance is a direct indicator of business performance, as well-rated BitSight companies outperform benchmarks by up to 7% annually. With this data, the crucial role of cybersecurity ratings has never been clearer, especially as governments and businesses continue to grapple with the impact of one of the largest cyber-attacks in history.
BitSight’s solutions for Security Performance Management, Third Party Risk Management, Critical National Infrastructure, and Cyber Insurance were further bolstered by partnerships with Solactive, Refinitiv and Kovrr, broadening BitSight’s offerings for investors and cyber insurers as cybersecurity ratings continue to demonstrate a strong correlation to business performance. With these greater implications in mind, customers have extended more than 7,400 invitations to BitSight’s platform to third parties (+57% year-over-year), alerting them to critical security issues and driving risk remediation. BitSight research shows that organizations who accept an invitation to the BitSight platform are twice as likely to improve their security rating by 50 points or more compared with those who do not accept.
BitSight continues to demonstrate its innovation with 15 new patents awarded in FY2021 and introducing significant new capabilities into the market, including:
- Solactive BitSight Cyber Risk Index: Together, BitSight and Solactive announced the Solactive BitSight Cyber Risk Index, a financial index that will enable investors to invest in companies who are top cybersecurity performers, as measured by BitSight.
- BitSight for Critical National Infrastructure: As more global governments work with BitSight’s platform, BitSight for Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) enables governments, CERTs and National Law Enforcement organizations to measure, monitor, and investigate the cybersecurity risk of their country, industry sectors, and critical infrastructure companies.
- Attack Surface Analytics: BitSight Attack Surface Analytics allows users to assess security risk across assets in the cloud, geographics, subsidiaries, and even across the remote workforce. A centralized dashboard shows the location of an organization’s digital assets and the corresponding cyber risk associated with each for quick remediation.
BitSight also responded to our changing world during the pandemic and in the wake of the SolarWinds Orion hack in real-time, driving industry discussion on critical cyber risk considerations and becoming a resource for clients seeking clarity and guidance.
- SolarWinds Orion Breach: The cybersecurity world was shocked when SolarWinds announced that its Orion software was compromised. BitSight worked swiftly with customers and partners to identify how many organizations were impacted and the prevalence of the compromised software in the days following the disclosure, and which best practices to implement based on hundreds of third party risk management workshops. The company was quickly positioned as a trusted authority on the impact.
- Pandemic Response: As businesses struggled amid the impact of COVID-19, BitSight offered customers the ability to monitor any companies for free through the end of the year, allowing them to continue prioritizing cyber risk management amid financial insecurity; 700 customers participated in this offer.
- COVID-19 and Work from Home: Amid the rapid and unexpected shift to remote workforces, BitSight analyzed more than 41,000 organizations and found that networks used to work from home are 3.5 times more likely to have malware present than the traditional corporate network. In response, BitSight introduced Work From Home – Remote Office, through which organizations can discover security concerns evident on remote offices and networks, reducing risk that their networks and data will be compromised.
BitSight also earned several prominent industry accolades in FY2021, including being named a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for IT Vendor Risk Management (VRM) Tools. BitSight was also featured as one of Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies, for its ability to transform how companies manage security risk by reducing information asymmetry and increasing transparency about cybersecurity.
To continue advancing BitSight’s unique solutions, the company appointed two new senior executives in the latter half of FY2021. Mark Desautelle joined BitSight in December 2020 as Chief Revenue and Customer Officer, responsible for overseeing BitSight’s sales teams, sales operations and marketing programs centered around revenue generation. Also in December, Alex Laats was appointed to EVP and GM, overseeing the company’s business units and product management teams.
As we continue to respond to the past year of upheaval and chart our path ahead, CEO Stephen Harvey noted that “BitSight remains focused on expanding our market leadership, continuing to elevate our ratings as the most-trusted and transparent in the industry. As we look ahead, the relationship between cyber risk and business will only grow. We will continue to provide our customers and partners with the tools to reach a universal understanding of cyber risk.”
About BitSight
BitSight transforms how organizations manage cyber risk. The BitSight Security Ratings Platform applies sophisticated algorithms, producing daily security ratings that range from 250 to 900, to help organizations manage their own security performance; mitigate third party risk; underwrite cyber insurance policies; conduct financial diligence; and assess aggregate risk. With over 2,100 global customers and the largest ecosystem of users and information, BitSight is the Standard in Security Ratings. For more information, please visit www.bitsight.com, read our blog or follow @BitSight on Twitter.