Tenable signs Wick Hill as first UK VAD

Distributor claims latest vendor signing can spark professional services sales for resellers

Security VAD Wick Hill claims its latest vendor signing, Tenable Network Security, has the ability to put resellers "right at the heart" of their customers' security strategy.

Tenable's flagship Nessus brand is billed as the most widely deployed vulnerability scanner in the world. More recently, Tenable moved into the enterprise space with the launch of its continuous network monitoring platform, SecurityCenter.

Wick Hill is Tenable's first UK distributor signing as the Maryland-based vendor looks to scale through a two-tier channel model.

"They have come to us at that classic scale point where they're about to jump to the next level of sales and need a distributor to handle the market-making as they expand," said Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of Wick Hill.

"Its install base in the UK is significant – in the millions of pounds – and anyone doing penetration testing will be familiar with it. Anyone who understands the need to be secure and who is moving beyond just antivirus and firewall should be looking at this."

Kilpatrick claimed vulnerability scanning has become a must for any firm with more than about 30 staff looking to tick compliance boxes. Throw in the publicity driver stemming from recent backdoor attacks at big brands such as US retailer Target, and penetration analysis has become a "high-growth" market, particularly at the high-end for SecurityCenter, he added.

According to IDC, the security and vulnerability management market – of which vulnerability scanning is a part – grew by 10.2 per cent to $4bn (£2.6bn) in 2013 and will swell to $6.5bn by 2018.

Although Kilpatrick said Nessus is a relatively low-cost product, he claimed it can spark a much bigger opportunity for VARs around professional services.

"Nessus gives you a broad analysis in a multi-platform environment. One of its strengths is its capability to produce reports in different formats, and SecurityCenter bolts straight in," he said.

"This is a product that by its nature puts you at the heart of an organisation's security structure. It can get you into the depths of security and networking discussions."