The rules of enterprise security have changed, and most organizations haven’t caught up.
AI is scaling. Automation is accelerating. And identities are no longer just human.
That’s why today we’re taking a decisive step forward: Quest Software has acquired Anetac.
This acquisition makes Quest stronger, and our customers better protected – and it goes even further: it is a move that redefines identity security for the AI-driven enterprise.
Identity is the new control plane and it’s expanding rapidly
Identity has always been central to cybersecurity, but the nature of identity itself has fundamentally shifted.
Today, non-human identities (NHIs) — service accounts, APIs, tokens, bots, and now AI agents—vastly outnumber humans, in some cases by 82 to 1.
And these aren’t passive identities; they are dynamic, distributed, and increasingly autonomous. They act. They make decisions. They access systems often with persistent, inherited privileges and little oversight.
This is the fastest-growing attack surface in cybersecurity.
The challenge is that most security models were built for a world of human users and static environments. They rely on periodic snapshots and assumptions of control.
That approach is no longer sufficient. In a world where identities are constantly being created, modified, and delegated – especially by AI – that old approach no longer works.
The reality is simple: you can’t secure what you can’t continuously see.
Why traditional identity security falls short
The market is full of solutions that claim to address identity risk. Most look backward. They tell you who had access. They flag problems after the fact. Anetac is different, and that’s exactly why we acquired them. Anetac shows you, in real time:
- What every identity is doing right now
- What it can access at this moment
- How privileges are inherited and chained across systems
It moves identity security from a backward-looking exercise to a live, dynamic understanding of risk, linking behavior, access, and privilege across human, non-human, and agentic identities.
That’s not an incremental improvement. That’s a fundamentally different model.
What this means for our customers
At Quest, we’ve always focused on helping organizations control what matters most: their data, their infrastructure, and their identities.
Together with Anetac, we are:
- Extending identity visibility beyond directories into real-time access and behavior
- Reducing risk by exposing hidden access paths and over-privileged identities
- Closing critical blind spots across hybrid, cloud, and AI-driven environments
- Shifting the security question from “Who has access?” to “Who can gain access right now – and how do we stop it?”
That last shift is everything. That’s the question modern security demands an answer to, continuously, not quarterly.
A clear signal to the market
This acquisition is a clear message – and a decisive one: we are investing aggressively in identity security innovation. Our customers need confidence in their security solution to operate at the speed and scale of AI and Quest is delivering.
Many vendors are trying to bolt non-human identity security onto legacy IAM platforms. Others are approaching the problem through fragmented tools focused on secret management or workload protection. Those approaches miss the bigger picture.
Attackers aren’t exploiting static access. They’re exploiting dynamic identity relationships that evolve every second.
At Quest, we are focused on the fastest-growing areas of risk. And we are committed to helping our customers stay ahead of what’s next, not react to what’s already happened.
Speed matters. Visibility matters. Control matters.
Identity sits at the center of all of it – and Quest intends to lead.
What’s next?
Our teams are already working together to bring Anetac’s capabilities into the Quest Security Management Platform, extending our leadership in identity security, ITDR, and identity resilience.
We will move quickly and thoughtfully, to deliver value while maintaining continuity for customers.
There is much more to come.
But one thing is already clear: The future of identity security belongs to those who can see, understand, and ultimately control identity in real time.
Read more in this press release.
