How Qualys evolved into a force in cloud vulnerability management

Qualys was founded in 1999 as security teams looked for a way to assess vulnerabilities across growing corporate networks without installing and managing separate scanners everywhere.

How Qualys developed

Philippe Courtot invested in the young company and became chief executive in 2001. Qualys built a cloud-delivered vulnerability-management service, expanded into compliance and broader security tooling, and went public in 2012.

Qualys in 2026

By 2026, Qualys offered cloud-based vulnerability, asset, compliance and security-risk management products for enterprise environments.

Qualys was early to the idea that security assessment could be delivered as a centrally managed online service, an approach that later became standard across much of enterprise cybersecurity.

Information was checked against public company material, regulatory filings and reputable independent reporting where available, using sources accessible on 18 September 2026.