BeyondTrust (formerly Symark) is an American company that develops, markets, and supports a family of privileged identity management / access management (PIM/PAM), privileged remote access, and vulnerability management products for

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

operating systems. BeyondTrust was founded in 2006 and provided Least Privilege Management software for the Microsoft Windows OS, before UNIX vendor Symark acquired BeyondTrust in 2009.By Steve Ragan, The Tech Herald.
Symark and BeyondTrust – best acquisition ever
September 14, 2009."By Doug Barney, Redmond Magazine.
Desktop Standard Bought by Microsoft -- Mostly
. " October 3, 2006. Retrieved on August 28, 2009. In 2018, the company was acquired by Bomgar, a developer of remote support and PAM software.By Andrew Ross, InformationAge.
Bomgar completes acquisition of BeyondTrust
. " October 4, 2018. In both cases, BeyondTrust was adopted as the new company name.By Sean Michael Kerner, eWeek.
Bomgar to Be Renamed BeyondTrust After Acquisition of PAM Vendor
. " September 13, 2018.By Tim Wilson, Dark Reading.
Symark Buys BeyondTrust, Takes BeyondTrust Name
. " September 14, 2009.

History

Symark

Symark was founded in 1985 as a

VAX/VMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Op ...

utility software company in Los Angeles'

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

. Its name is derived from the initials of its founders, Bob Sommers and Doug Yarrow. Symark was also a client-server computing vendor, before later acquiring a license for the UNIX security product UPM (now owned by

Quest Software Quest Software, also known as Quest, is a privately held software company headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. Quest provides cloud management, software as a service, security, workforce mobility, and backup & recovery. The co ...

) and rebranding their version ''PowerBroker''.By Alex Woodie, The Linux Beacon.
Symark Tackles Tough Access Control Problems
. " April 2, 2008. Symark relocated to

Westlake Village Westlake Village is a city in Los Angeles County, California, on its western border with Ventura County. Upon its incorporation in 1981, Westlake Village became the 82nd municipality of Los Angeles County.Baker, Pam (2002). ''Thousand Oaks We ...

, California, then again to

Agoura Hills Agoura Hills () is a city situated in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 20,330 as of the 2010 United States census, 2010 census, which decreased to 20,299 in 2020. Agoura H ...

. The company was focused on identity, access, and password management for privileged users on UNIX systems. From 2003—2008 the company expanded in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

. During the same time period, they also grew by almost 300 percent and were one of the fastest growing private companies in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

area.

The original BeyondTrust

In 2003, AutoProf introduced the AutoProf Policy maker, which was the first commercial product to build upon

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

's built-in

Group Policy Group Policy is a feature of the Microsoft Windows NT family of operating systems (including Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11) that controls the working environment of user accounts and computer accounts. Group Policy provides centralized mana ...

Objects to make common tasks like mapping network drives or sharing printer connections easier. In 2005, AutoProf grew 90% in revenue over the previous yearPress Release.
AutoProf Announces Record Year Revenue Growth
" January 12, 2005. Retrieved on August 28, 2009 and changed the company name to DesktopStandard.Press Release.

" January 26, 2005. Retrieved on August 28, 2009. Four million

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

s were under the management of DesktopStandard's software across 3,500 customers. From 2003 to 2005, DesktopStandard added six products to their portfolio for

role-based access control In computer systems security, role-based access control (RBAC) or role-based security is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users, and to implementing mandatory access control (MAC) or discretionary access control, discretion ...

(RBAC), password management, and identity access management on Windows. In 2006, Microsoft acquired most of DesktopStandard's products, and DesktopStandard's CEO formed a new company (BeyondTrust) around the remaining Policy Maker Application Security product.

Acquisitions

2009: Symark acquired the Windows-based business of BeyondTrust in 2009 for approximately $20 million and they adopted BeyondTrust as the new company name.By Jackie Noblett, Mass High Tech.
BeyondTrust acquired by Symark
. September 14, 2009 2011: BeyondTrust acquired software from Likewise Software. May 2012: BeyondTrust acquired Vulnerability Management Pioneer eEye Digital Security. December 2012: BeyondTrust acquired Blackbird Group. September 2014: Veritas Capital acquired BeyondTrust for $310 million. October 2018: Bomgar acquired BeyondTrust from Veritas.

Bomgar

Bomgar was a remote support provider that allows support technicians to remotely connect to end-user systems through firewalls from their computer or mobile device. Using the Bomgar Representative Console, technology support professionals can access and control systems and devices remotely, including personal computers,

smartphones A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as mult ...

, tablets, servers, switches,

point-of-sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...

systems and others. The company originated when Joel Bomgaars developed his own remote support solutions to cut back on wasted hours he spent travelling while working as a support professional for a local company. In June 2003, he set up a one-page, static website selling his own, home-grown remote access solution, calling it ExpertVNC. Soon thereafter, his two college friends, Nathan McNeill and Patrick Norman, joined Bomgar as co-founders. In May 2004, ExpertVNC changed its name to NetworkStreaming. In the next month it changed its cloud-based product to an appliance model, differentiating itself from other similar remote support solutions. In February 2007, NetworkStreaming changes its company name to Bomgar, a simplified form of Joel Bomgaars' family name that he also chose to use professionally for himself. Bomgar's first private equity investors, TA Associates, placed a majority investment in Bomgar in May 2014. In April 2018,

Francisco Partners Francisco Partners Management, L.P., doing business as Francisco Partners, is an American private equity firm focused exclusively on investments in technology and technology-enabled services businesses. It was founded in August 1999 and based in ...

announced that it acquired Bomgar from

Thoma Bravo Thoma Bravo, LP is an American private equity and growth capital firm based in Chicago, Illinois. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring enterprise software companies and has over $130billion in assets under management . It ...

, which owned Bomgar since June 2016. Financial details of this deal were not disclosed. Bomgar now operates under the name BeyondTrust.

Treasury Department hacking incident

It was reported on December 30, 2024 that BeyondTrust was implicated in a hacking incident against the U.S. Treasury Department by state-sponsored Chinese hackers. According to the report, the hackers stole an API key for a remote support SaaS application from BeyondTrust and used it to compromise U.S. Treasury workstations, viewing unclassified documents in what was described as a "major incident".

References

External links

Bomgar

Bomgar Community
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beyondtrust Security companies of the United States Companies based in Los Angeles County, California Companies based in Rockingham County, New Hampshire Computer security software Unix security-related software Information technology companies of the United States Companies based in Carlsbad, California