Tenable (NASDAQ: TENB), a global leader in exposure management, has confirmed its prominent role at the upcoming Black Hat Middle East 2025 conference in Riyadh. The event, scheduled for December 2-4, will feature a pivotal keynote address from the company’s co-CEO, Mark Thurmond.
Thurmond’s presentation, titled “Beyond the Silos: Exposure Management in a New Age of Risk,” will argue for a fundamental paradigm shift in global cybersecurity strategy. He is poised to assert that traditional security models have been rendered obsolete by a perfect storm of challenges: an exponentially expanding digital attack surface, a fragmented arsenal of security tools, and adversaries who are rapidly maturing, particularly through the weaponization of Artificial Intelligence.
The timing and location of this address are highly strategic. It will directly contextualize these cyber risks within the framework of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030, a national transformation strategy underpinned by massive investments in digital infrastructure and AI. Thurmond will emphasize that protecting such monumental technological progress requires a new, proactive defensive posture.
Key critical themes to be explored include:
The Illusion of Fragmented Defense: Despite organizations deploying an average of over 80 distinct security solutions, security teams are drowning in complexity and a daily deluge of tens of thousands of alerts. This siloed and disjointed approach inadvertently creates an overwhelming advantage for attackers.
The AI-Powered Adversary: Cyber attackers are now leveraging AI to develop highly sophisticated and hyper-realistic attacks at an unprecedented pace. This technology allows them to compress attack development timelines from weeks down to mere minutes, effortlessly bypassing conventional, signature-based defenses.
The Rise of Proactive Exposure Management: Tenable advocates for a decisive move away from reactive “firefighting” and toward a strategy of pre-emptive “fireproofing.” Exposure management provides unified, holistic visibility across the entire modern attack surface—encompassing cloud, IT, identity, and operational technology (OT) environments. This enables organizations to continuously identify, prioritize, and remediate critical vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
“The cybersecurity playbook we’ve relied on for the past two decades is fundamentally broken,” stated Mark Thurmond. “In this new era defined by AI, embracing the discipline of exposure management is not an option but a necessity. This pre-emptive methodology is the only viable path to fortify our defenses and ensure a secure and prosperous future for the global digital economy.”
Conference attendees are encouraged to attend the keynote session and visit the Tenable exhibition booth for live demonstrations of the AI-driven Tenable One Exposure Management Platform.