“You can’t put a price tag on Panorays. We’ve had cases where findings led to our C-levels contacting vendor CEOs directly to address security concerns. That’s the kind of impact we’re talking about.”
Background
Every ad-tech insider knows one truth: partnerships make or break the industry. At Perion, a global digital media powerhouse, these partnerships run deep.
Perion’s platform operates as a stock market for ads, connecting advertisers to the perfect channels through real-time bidding. With over 100 crucial vendors – and counting, every new partnership adds both opportunity and risk.
Perion’s exponential growth, built through strategic acquisitions of multiple companies, was proving to be great for business and tricky for security. The company was looking for a better way to see and control their vendor relationships.
“In our world, third-party relationships are everything,” says Ben Hacmon, Perion’s CISO. “But we move fast. Really fast. We needed security that could keep up.”
The Tipping Point: Vendor Visibility
Known for its innovation-driven culture, Perion operates multiple business units, each with its own R&D, supply chain, and vendor network. While this setup keeps Perion quick on its feet, it creates unique challenges for third-party security, with layers of vendor relationships and risk profiles to manage across teams.
“We had vendors working across multiple business units, each with different security requirements,” Ben explains. “One team might flag a security concern while another team was expanding their contract with the same vendor. We were flying blind.”
Ben breaks down the challenges the team was facing:
- Security and privacy assessments were manual and performed separately
- Teams were duplicating efforts assessing the same vendors
- Risk assessments didn’t have any business context
- Critical security insights were locked in data silos
- New partnerships were forming faster than legal and security could keep up
Finding Panorays: A Fresh Approach to Third-Party Risk
Perion was now in the market for a new third-party security tool. “We looked at several solutions,” Ben recalls. “Most offered basic security assessments, but Panorays showed us something different – a way to understand our vendors in context.”
Seeing risk through a business lens was a revelation. Instead of just identifying risks, Panorays pointed at why those risks mattered in terms of business impact. Ben quickly saw how this could overhaul third-party security from isolated checks into decisions that aligned with strategic business goals.
Why Panorays Stood Out
- 24/7 Continuous monitoring, covering all bases
- Smart questionnaires and process automation
- Security scores that make sense to business units
- Flexible integration that works with Perion’s existing workflows
For the first time, Ben and his team had a clear, actionable score for each vendor that aligned with both security needs and business priorities.
Another standout feature was Panorays’ continuous external attack surface monitoring. While other providers offered limited visibility, Panorays provided real-time insights on vulnerabilities across Perion’s vendor network. In a high-stakes ad-tech setting, this meant everything for Ben and his team.
The Day Everything Clicked
Ben recalls a special moment from the early days of using Panorays. During a routine monitoring cycle, Panorays flagged a vulnerability that could have potentially exposed sensitive data through one of Perion’s key vendors. “Within minutes of the alert, we had all the context we needed,” Ben recalls. “The vendor’s role, the potential impact, everything. Our CEO got on the phone with their CEO. The issue was resolved in hours instead of weeks.”
For Ben, this was a pivotal moment, illustrating Panorays’ power to turn a potential risk into a quick win for the team.
The Transformation
| Before Panorays | After Panorays | |
| Risk visibility | Siloed data, limited real-time insights | 24/7 monitoring, with real-time integrated Slack alerts for fast response |
| Productivity | Time-draining manual questionnaires; duplicated vendor records | Smart automation with a unified, searchable vendor database |
| Decision-making | Security assessments isolated from business context | Integrated risk scores that align with business priorities |
| Response time | Often delayed due to manual tracking | Real-time alerts drive quick and coordinated action |
Today, every new vendor relationship starts with a business-context-informed risk score that everyone, from security to business units, can understand.
Vendors, once onboarded without full visibility, are now part of a well-vetted, transparent process. Security and vendor assessments are now fully automated, taking a fraction of the time they used to. As a result, legal and security teams can vet new partnerships faster and with confidence, knowing they have the insights they need to make good decisions.
Integrating Panorays with Slack was another gamer changer for Ben and his team. Accepting that stakeholders may not log in to the platform daily, Ben set up Slack alerts to deliver critical updates right where people already work. “It keeps us connected to the issues instantly,” says Ben, “keeping everyone in sync and ready to respond.”
A New Mindset
But as Ben notes, the most remarkable change was in Perion’s culture. From a back-office function, third-party security had moved to an integrated part of the company’s strategy. Teams across the company, from R&D to legal, have a new awareness of what each vendor relationship means for the business.
As Ben describes it, “Our entire organization now thinks of vendor risk as a business risk. Panorays made that possible.”
“What really stands out is that with Panorays, every team member, no matter their job title, is now aware of vendor risk. That’s a huge takeaway.”