FleetDM at Rivian Automotive

Rivian’s enterprise-wide deployment of FleetDM marks a notable departure from traditional vulnerability management practices reliant on legacy platforms like Rapid7 and Tenable. This analysis explores how FleetDM’s lightweight agent architecture, deep device-level visibility, rapid deployment, and cost structure position it as a disruptive force in enterprise security—particularly for manufacturers operating at the convergence of IT and OT. The move illustrates broader shifts in cybersecurity posture optimization through software modularity, operational telemetry, and custom API integration.

1. Market Structure: Legacy Incumbents vs. Lightweight Observability

Vulnerability management is dominated by agent-heavy platforms such as Rapid7, Qualys, and Tenable. These tools were architected for network-wide scanning via heavyweight agents that provide scheduled checks and policy compliance mapping. While mature, they are increasingly challenged in environments that require real-time observability, hardware-level introspection, and rapid, secure deployment across heterogeneous environments—including operational technology (OT).

FleetDM operates atop osquery, a universal open-source instrumentation agent that exposes endpoint internals as queryable tables. This allows device-level visibility with significantly lower overhead. Rather than polling entire networks, FleetDM enables granular querying at the endpoint level—from BIOS firmware states to TPM chip statuses.

2. Growth Constraints: Deployment Friction and OT Incompatibility

One major limitation of traditional platforms lies in deployment friction. Rivian’s experience illustrates this sharply: uninstalling Rapid7 was laborious, while FleetDM agents were rolled out to over 15,000 devices within two weeks with minimal manual configuration.

Moreover, most legacy platforms struggle in OT environments. These systems, such as those on manufacturing lines, have limited compute and bandwidth tolerance, making bulky agents infeasible. FleetDM’s success in these environments underscores a fundamental market gap: cybersecurity tooling that is designed for constrained, hybrid, or embedded environments.

3. Competitive Landscape: Feature Depth vs. Integration Flexibility

Legacy platforms often provide comprehensive dashboards but are closed-loop systems with limited custom data extraction or reporting capabilities. FleetDM, by contrast, functions as a composable security layer. Rivian leveraged FleetDM’s RESTful APIs to ingest data into Splunk and custom data lakes, enabling real-time alerting, custom dashboards, and tailored reporting pipelines.

4. Distribution & Integration Model: BYOT (Bring Your Own Telemetry)

FleetDM’s architecture allows enterprises to “bring their own telemetry” infrastructure. Devices effectively become real-time query surfaces. Instead of fixed reports, security teams can craft custom queries and automations across fleet states.

This aligns with modern DevSecOps trends, where security tooling must act as a programmable, API-first data layer rather than a siloed dashboard. Rivian’s internal development of automated risk reports using FleetDM’s osquery capabilities showcases this shift.

5. Supply Chain & Cost Efficiency: Consolidation of Security Vendors

FleetDM’s deployment led to the retirement of six-figure contracts with other vendors. This was not merely a swap of tools—it was a strategic consolidation. Where multiple tools were needed for endpoint visibility, compliance mapping, and hardware security posture, FleetDM’s deep querying rendered them redundant.

This reflects a broader enterprise strategy: reducing security tooling bloat and operational fragmentation. FleetDM’s lightweight footprint and centralized observability make it a candidate for such rationalization across mid-size and large enterprises.

6. Challenges and Forward Development: UI Maturity & Query Complexity

While powerful, FleetDM’s reliance on osquery means users must write SQL-like statements to interrogate devices. For less technical teams, this presents a barrier. Rivian’s engagement with FleetDM to co-develop more intuitive UI features reflects an emerging product evolution path—abstracting technical complexity while retaining depth.

7. Takeaways: Strategic Implications for Operators and Investors

For Operators:

• Security Infrastructure as Code: Tools like FleetDM align with agile development pipelines and infrastructure-as-code workflows. Cybersecurity becomes composable and programmable.

• Convergence-Ready Architecture: FleetDM’s compatibility with OT environments allows manufacturers and critical infrastructure providers to consolidate security tooling across IT and OT domains.

• Vendor Consolidation Opportunity: Security teams can reduce licensing complexity and operational overhead by integrating FleetDM’s telemetry into existing observability pipelines.

For Investors:

• Shift Toward Modular Cyber Platforms: FleetDM represents a trend away from monolithic platforms toward microservice-like security tooling that integrates via APIs.

• Cost Efficiency Drives Adoption: Vendors that enable direct cost reduction without feature regression—like FleetDM—are well positioned during periods of enterprise budget tightening.

• Early-Mover Advantage in OT Security: As industrial digitalization increases, tools optimized for resource-constrained environments will see outsized growth.

Closing Thought:
FleetDM at Rivian is not simply a case of tool replacement. It’s a reflection of where enterprise cybersecurity is heading: modular, query-driven, and composable. Just as Tesla reimagined the car as a software platform, FleetDM is enabling cybersecurity to become a dynamic, data-native layer woven into modern enterprise infrastructure.