Tripwire (company)

This article is about the company. For the open-source software it maintains, see Open Source Tripwire.

Not to be confused with Tripwire Interactive.

Tripwire, Inc. is a software company based in Portland, Oregon,^[3] that focuses on security and compliance automation. It is a subsidiary of technology company Fortra.

Tripwire, Inc.

Company type	Subsidiary
Founded	1997
Headquarters	Block 300[1] Portland, Oregon United States
Revenue	US$86.2 million (2010)[2]
Net income	$4 million (2010)[2]
Owner	Fortra
Number of employees	400 (2013)
Website	tripwire.com

History

Tripwire's intrusion detection software was created in the 1990s by Purdue University graduate student Gene Kim^[4] and his professor Gene Spafford.^[5][6][7][8] In 1997, Gene Kim co-founded Tripwire, Inc. with rights to the Tripwire name and technology, and produced a commercial version, Tripwire for Servers.

In 2000, Tripwire released Open Source Tripwire.^[9][10]

In 2005, the firm released Tripwire Enterprise, a product for configuration control by detecting, assessing, reporting and remediating file and configuration changes. In January 2010, it announced the release of Tripwire Log Center, a log and security information and event management (SIEM) software that stores, correlates and reports log and security event data.^{[citation needed]} The two products can be integrated to enable correlation of change and event data. August 21, 2009, the firm acquired Activeworx technologies from CrossTec Corporation.

Revenues grew to $74 million in 2009.^[11] In October 2009, the company had 261 employees;^[12] that number grew to 336 by June 2010.^[13]

By May–June 2010, the company had over 5,500 customers^[13] and had announced that it had filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock.^[14] A year later, the company announced its sale to the private equity firm Thoma Bravo, ending its $86 million IPO plans.^[15] CEO Jim Johnson cited the firm's failure to reach the $100 million revenue milestone in 2010 as well as changing IPO market expectations as reasons for not going through with the IPO.^[16] The day following the acquisition, the company laid off about 50 of its 350 employees.^[17]

Tripwire acquired nCircle, which focused on asset discovery and vulnerability management, in 2013.^[18]

In December 2014, Belden announced plans to buy Tripwire for $710 million.^[19] The acquisition was completed on January 2, 2015.^[20] In February 2022, Belden announced to sell Tripwire to HelpSystems (HelpSystems was renamed Fortra later that year).^[21]