Qualys is a pioneer and leading provider of cloud-based security and compliance solutions. Its mission is to help organizations streamline and automate their security and compliance, offering greater agility, better business outcomes, and cost savings. Qualys aims to provide comprehensive, real-time visibility into IT assets and their security posture, enabling businesses to identify and remediate vulnerabilities effectively. The company is focused on innovating in cybersecurity to help organizations secure their digital environments and stay ahead of emerging threats.
A core goal for Qualys is to simplify security operations and lower the cost of compliance by delivering critical security intelligence on demand and automating the full spectrum of auditing, compliance, and protection for IT systems and web applications. Qualys strives to be cloud-agnostic, supporting clients’ diverse cloud preferences and enabling them to meet their security goals regardless of their cloud provider. The company is committed to helping customers reduce their overall cyber risk by understanding their exposure across hybrid environments and remediating issues quickly.
Qualys has established a strong market reputation as a trusted provider of vulnerability management and cloud security solutions. It is recognized for its scalable, cloud-native platform and its ability to provide comprehensive coverage and ease of use. Many large global companies rely on Qualys for their security and compliance needs. The company is also known for its continuous innovation in areas like risk management and cloud security.
Offerings, Capabilities, and Integrations
Qualys provides a cloud-based platform for IT, security, and compliance solutions. Its offerings are designed to help organizations discover and classify IT assets, detect vulnerabilities, monitor for threats, and ensure compliance with various industry standards and regulations. Qualys’ platform integrates a suite of security applications, enabling businesses to consolidate their security and compliance stack, which can lead to greater agility and cost savings. This unified approach, leveraging a single agent for continuous security intelligence across diverse IT environments (including on-premises, endpoints, cloud, containers, and mobile devices), gives Qualys a competitive edge. The platform’s scalability, Six Sigma scanning accuracy, and ability to provide a comprehensive view of an organization’s security posture contribute to its reputation as a leading provider in the cybersecurity market.
Qualys’ capabilities include asset discovery and management, vulnerability management, threat detection and prioritization, remediation (including patch management), policy compliance, web application scanning, and cloud and container security. The Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform aggregates cyber risk signals to provide a risk-scoring framework, enabling organizations to measure and reduce IT risk. Qualys also emphasizes integrations with other IT and security systems, including major cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure, as well as IT service management (ITSM) tools such as ServiceNow and JIRA. This allows for automated workflows and streamlined security operations.
Products and Services
Qualys offers a comprehensive suite of cloud-based products and services primarily delivered through its Enterprise TruRisk Platform. Key offerings include:
- Qualys Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response (VMDR): Considered a flagship product, VMDR provides an all-in-one solution for vulnerability scanning, threat detection, prioritization, and response, incorporating asset management into a continuous cycle.
- Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform: This platform unifies various security applications to provide a comprehensive view of cyber risk, enabling organizations to identify, manage, and remediate vulnerabilities across their IT landscape.
- Cybersecurity Asset Management (CSAM): Helps organizations discover, inventory, and classify all IT assets across on-premises, cloud, and endpoint environments.
- External Attack Surface Management (EASM): Provides visibility into and helps protect an organization’s external attack surface.
- Patch Management: Streamlines and automates the process of deploying patches to remediate vulnerabilities.
- Web Application Scanning (WAS): Identifies and helps fix vulnerabilities in web applications, including detecting OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities and scanning APIs.
- Policy Compliance (PC): Enables organizations to assess and enforce compliance with internal policies and external regulations.
- File Integrity Monitoring (FIM): Monitors and detects changes to critical files that could indicate a security breach.
- Cloud Workload Protection (CWP) / TotalCloud: Secures cloud workloads and provides cloud security posture management (CSPM).
- Container Security (CS): Delivers continuous vulnerability assessment and runtime protection for containers and Kubernetes environments.
- Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Provides capabilities to detect and respond to threats on endpoints.
- Qualys TotalAppSec: A newer offering, this AI-powered solution unifies API security, web application scanning, and web malware detection to manage application risk.
- TruRisk Eliminate: A new solution that extends beyond patching to offer additional remediation methods when patching is not feasible, including patchless patching and targeted isolation.
- TotalAI: A solution designed to secure the complete MLOps pipeline and protect against AI and LLM model risks.
- Network Passive Sensor: Monitors network traffic to detect assets on the network that need to be secured.
QualysGuard was the company’s initial flagship product, which has evolved into the Qualys Cloud Platform. Qualys VMDR is now often highlighted as a flagship product. Recent additions to its portfolio include TruRisk Eliminate and TotalAppSec, as well as expanded capabilities in AI security with TotalAI.
Target Customers
Cloud Integrations and Marketplaces
Qualys offers various integrations with major cloud providers, enabling customers to extend security and compliance visibility into their cloud environments. Qualys also has a presence on the marketplaces of these cloud providers, facilitating the procurement and deployment of its solutions.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS): Qualys provides native integration with AWS Security Hub, allowing findings from Qualys’ Vulnerability Management, Policy Compliance, and Cloud Security Assessment applications to be consolidated within the AWS console. This integration aims to provide real-time visibility into security and compliance posture and helps in faster detection and prioritization of risks in AWS environments. Qualys also offers its Virtual Scanner Appliance as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) on the AWS Marketplace, which can be launched into Amazon EC2 instances. This is a “Bring Your Own License” (BYOL) model, meaning customers need a Qualys license to use the virtual scanner. More recently, Qualys made its VMDR TruRisk, FixIT, and ProtectIT capabilities available on the AWS Marketplace, packaged and priced for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), with options for annual or consumption-based pricing. Qualys also launched its Container Security solution on the AWS Marketplace for Containers, enabling customers to gain visibility and security of containerized applications running on AWS.
- Microsoft Azure: Qualys integrates with Azure Security Center, which can detect Azure virtual machines and automatically deploy Qualys Cloud Agents. These agents collect vulnerability data, which is then processed by the Qualys Cloud Platform and reported back to Azure Security Center. Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliances can be deployed directly from the Azure Marketplace and Azure Stack Marketplace. This allows for assessing the security and compliance of Azure infrastructure, including Azure Stack for on-premises deployments. The Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance on Azure Marketplace helps provide a continuous view of security and compliance for Azure cloud infrastructure. Customers can also deploy Qualys Cloud Agents as an extension when creating new virtual machines.
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Qualys has partnered with Google Cloud to integrate the Qualys Cloud Agent with the Google Cloud Platform, offering one-click vulnerability assessment. Qualys’ security and compliance solutions are available on the Google Cloud Marketplace, which streamlines deployment and purchasing. Vulnerability findings from Qualys are automatically available in the GCP Security Command Center (Cloud SCC), providing direct visibility into the security posture of cloud assets. Customers can install Qualys Cloud Agents for GCP VM instances through the GCP Marketplace using a BYOL model. This integration allows for the deployment of the Qualys Cloud Agent on specified compute instances on Google Cloud. The Qualys Cloud Agent solution on the GCP Marketplace enables users to configure and deploy agents on multiple Google VM instances.
Qualys also offers native integrations for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The Qualys Cloud Platform and its Cloud Agent aim to provide a unified view of IT, security, and compliance across various environments, including on-premises assets, endpoints, and multiple clouds.
Key People
- President & CEO: Sumedh Thakar
- Chief Financial Officer: Joo Mi Kim
- Chief Revenue Officer: Dino DiMarino
- Chief Product Officer: Pinkesh Shah
- Chief Human Resources Officer: Rima Touma Bruno
- Chief Legal Officer: Bruce Posey
- CTO and EVP, Enterprise TruRisk Platform: Dilip Bachwani
Key Facts
- Headquarters Location: Foster City, California, USA.
- Number of Employees: Approximately 2,400.
- Annual Revenue: $607.6 million (for 2024).
- Parent Company: None.
- Subsidiary Companies: Approximately 16, including Qualys International, Inc. (United States), Qualys Security TechServices Private Ltd. (India), Qualys GmbH (Germany), Qualys Ltd. (United Kingdom), and Qualys Japan K.K. (Japan).
- Publicly Listed: Yes (NASDAQ: QLYS).
Analyst Recognition
Qualys has been recognized by several prominent analyst groups for its offerings in the cybersecurity market.
- Gartner: Qualys was named a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Vulnerability Assessment. In 2019, Qualys Vulnerability Management was recognized as a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Vulnerability Assessment. An older recognition from 2013 indicates Qualys received a “Strong Positive” rating in Gartner’s MarketScope for Vulnerability Assessment for the fifth time. In a 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Security Testing, Qualys was positioned as a “Challenger”.
- Forrester: In The Forrester Wave™: Attack Surface Management Solutions, Q3 2024, Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management was recognized as a Strong Performer. A 2023 Forrester report on Vulnerability Risk Management noted that Qualys, along with Rapid7, had departed from the “Leaderboard” in that specific evaluation. An older report, The Forrester Wave™: Vulnerability Management, Q2 2010, positioned Qualys as a Leader.
- IDC: In 2018, IDC recognized Qualys as having the fifth largest market share in the Worldwide Security and Vulnerability Management market and as the market-share leader in the Worldwide Vulnerability Assessment Market for the second consecutive year (based on 2016 data). IDC also published a white paper in 2023 detailing the business value of the Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform, highlighting a significant return on investment for customers. A 2024 announcement mentioned a Risk Operations Center (ROC) launched by Qualys, with an IDC research director commenting on its approach.
- Everest Group: While direct recognition of Qualys by Everest Group in specific PEAK Matrix® assessments for its own solutions was not prominently found in the search results, Qualys is mentioned as a technology partner for other companies in Everest Group reports. For example, Qualys is listed as a technology partner for Accenture in Everest Group’s Cybersecurity Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2024 – Europe and North America. Similarly, Qualys is mentioned as a technology partner for NTT DATA in Everest Group’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2025.
