Secure Decisions
Secure Decisions is the government-funded cybersecurity research division of Applied Visions that originally developed Code Dx and builds visual analytics tools for vulnerability and network-risk data.
Visit Website ↗ + Add to CompareOverview
Secure Decisions is the cybersecurity research and development division of Applied Visions, Inc., a small New York-based software company. Based in East Northport, New York, the division has operated since around 2000, funded primarily through U.S. government research contracts — DARPA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Naval Research Laboratory among them — to build visual analytics tools that help human analysts make sense of large volumes of security data.
Secure Decisions is best known as the original developer of Code Dx, an application security risk-management platform that correlates results from dozens of static, dynamic, and open-source vulnerability scanners into a single prioritized view; Synopsys acquired Code Dx outright in 2021, and it now lives inside Black Duck’s broader Polaris application security platform rather than as a Secure Decisions product. What remains under the Secure Decisions/Applied Visions banner today includes MeerCAT, a geospatial and topological visualization tool for locating and assessing wireless network risk delivered to government customers including the U.S. Navy, and VIAssist, a visual analytics platform for cybersecurity data exploration used in academic and government contexts.
Secure Decisions is not a conventional commercial vendor: it is a small, government-funded R&D shop rather than a venture-backed startup, and it therefore has thinner public evidence of broad commercial traction than typical vulnerability management vendors. Its research pedigree is real, though, and it is a useful example of how DARPA/DHS-funded research groups feed technology, like Code Dx, into the broader commercial application security market.
Innovation Matrix Assessment
The division continues to deliver government contract milestones (e.g., MeerCAT-FS to the U.S. Navy) but does not run on a commercial product release cadence.
As a small division of a small parent company (Applied Visions, which has raised roughly $2.3M total), Secure Decisions lacks the commercial operational infrastructure of a typical vulnerability management vendor.
The clearest commercial momentum event, the Code Dx acquisition, happened in 2021 and left the division; recent public evidence of growth is limited to occasional government contract deliveries.
Visual analytics for wireless network risk (MeerCAT) and cybersecurity data exploration (VIAssist) are genuinely useful niche techniques but are not broadly disruptive to the wider security market.
Multi-decade, renewed funding from DARPA, DHS, AFRL, and NRL, plus direct delivery of tools to agencies like the U.S. Navy, is solid evidence of technical efficacy for research-grade software.
Security data visualization and vulnerability triage remain relevant problems, but Secure Decisions today is a narrow, largely government-facing niche rather than a broadly enterprise-relevant vendor, especially after Code Dx's departure via acquisition.
Why CISOs Should Care
Secure Decisions is less a vendor most enterprise CISOs will buy from directly and more the origin lab behind Code Dx, now part of Black Duck; its remaining tools like MeerCAT are relevant mainly to government and defense customers doing wireless risk assessment.
What Makes It Different
Unlike commercial vulnerability management vendors, Secure Decisions is a government-funded research group whose tools are validated through direct delivery to agencies like the U.S. Navy rather than through traditional enterprise sales and marketing.
The Matrix Verdict
38/100 — EMERGING / UNRANKED
A credible, long-running government-funded security research shop with a real commercial success story in its rearview mirror (Code Dx, now part of Black Duck), but its current standalone offerings are narrow, government-facing, and thin on independent commercial evidence.
Editorial Note: Claims vs. Verified Findings
Secure Decisions' role as the original developer of Code Dx and its status as a division of Applied Visions are independently documented via the company's own site and Synopsys/Black Duck's acquisition announcements. The claim that MeerCAT-FS was delivered to the U.S. Navy comes directly from the company's own press page; we could not independently corroborate it through a separate government source, so it should be treated as a company-reported claim pending verification.
Sources
Alternatives to Secure Decisions
Unknown Cyber Inc.
Malware genomics platform using automated deep static analysis and code-lineage comparison to identify unseen malware, variants, and supply-chain…
Synack Inc
A penetration-testing-as-a-service platform pairing a vetted researcher community with AI-driven attack surface discovery for continuous security validation.
Horizon3.ai
Autonomous penetration testing company whose NodeZero platform self-attacks networks without persistent agents, aiming to replace annual manual pentests…
Airlock Digital
Application allowlisting (deny-by-default) platform that blocks unapproved executables, scripts, and processes to prevent ransomware and malware execution.
Cogent Security
Agentic AI platform that autonomously triages, investigates, and remediates vulnerabilities as a force multiplier for security teams.
ReversingLabs
Software supply chain security and binary analysis vendor that inspects compiled software and packages for malware and unauthorized…