We announced today that Coalition has acquired BinaryEdge. The BinaryEdge team has built exceptional technology used by large global corporations and the security community to scan the global Internet, map the Internet attack surface of any organization, and provide real-time threat intelligence to help reduce cyber risk. We plan to integrate the BinaryEdge technology with our cyber insurance and security platform to give Coalition policyholders (and eventually all companies) access to security capabilities typically only accessible to large corporations.

It’s tempting to think of the BinaryEdge acquisition as a new feature to be added to Coalition’s security offering. But it actually represents a key part of a long-term Coalition Secret Master Plan.

Over the last few years, Coalition has steadily built not only the most comprehensive cyber insurance product, but also a number of security capabilities that have demonstrably reduced risk to our policyholders. Case in point, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners reported that 4.7% of organizations with a standalone cyber insurance policy filed a claim in 2018. Meanwhile, less than 2% of Coalition policyholders filed a claim over the same period — less than half the frequency across the broader market. And the same was true in 2019.

More recently, we launched Coalition Incident Response, a dedicated team of forensic experts and incident responders available exclusively to our policyholders at no cost. Repeat, no cost, and with no erosion to the aggregate limit of their insurance coverage. Sounds crazy we know, but it’s all part of the plan.

The result of these efforts has been fewer breaches (and, of course, claims), and far less cost to detect, contain, and help our policyholders recover when one occurs. BinaryEdge is yet one more step in our quest to build an all-out security platform with free tools, technology, and intelligence to protect all of our policyholders.

Why BinaryEdge

A computer didn’t hack you, a human did. And that human is using the openness and power of the Internet against you. Criminal hackers have long employed Internet scanning tools to identify and target vulnerable organizations and their networks. Once they’ve found the "nail" (i.e., vulnerability) sticking out above the surface, they swing their hammer (i.e., exploit) and hack their target. The majority of the time they don’t know (or care) who the target is. One nail is enough to put any organization — no matter their size or significance — in the crosshairs.

BinaryEdge is very, very good at finding nails. Each month BinaryEdge scans over 5 billion (with a B!) devices connected to the global Internet, talking to each device hundreds of times per month. Think of it as a search engine like Google, but for Internet-connected devices and security vulnerabilities.

By making this data available to the good guys, BinaryEdge has helped hundreds of organizations remove their nails and safeguard their organizations. The problem is that there are millions of organizations in need of this information.

Now that BinaryEdge is part of Coalition, we plan to solve this.

Going Forward

Effective immediately, BinaryEdge’s Internet scanning technology is now monitoring the thousands of organizations that have selected Coalition as their insurance provider. Not just at the time of quotation, but all of the time (even as you read this!).

This acquisition signals our ongoing commitment to serving as a dedicated partner in risk management to all of our policyholders. No other insurance provider can provide the breadth of coverage, the ongoing 24/7 monitoring of an organization’s Internet threat surface, and the tools and services to help prevent and mitigate cyber incidents.

There is good news for BinaryEdge customers and users as well! Coalition will be making significant investments in the BinaryEdge platform, and we’ve already doubled the size of the team working on it. This will result in notable improvements and new features for BinaryEdge’s existing customers, all of whom we’re also happy to insure on the Coalition side!

As a personal note, I’m thrilled that the BinaryTeam team decided to join Coalition. We’ve tracked their progress and development for a few years and it was long clear that we shared a similar vision to bring together the disciplines of insurance and cybersecurity. BinaryEdge’s technology and team is world-class, and it made all the sense to join forces to democratize access to cybersecurity, and to jointly create solutions for what has quickly become the single most pervasive risk facing most organizations: cyber risk.

Coalition is hiring to grow its product and engineering teams across a number of positions. If you’re passionate about solving seemingly large and intractable problems, welcome to your new home!