However, Steinkrauss said that isn't impossible that Core would accept the right acquisition offer.

In fact, the board member only signed on with Core in mid-June and has a personal history of leading security buyouts, having served as the chairman at Authentica when it was sold to EMC in 2006 and acting as CEO at both Xedia -- sold to Lucent for $246 million in 1999 -- and Raptor Systems -- which was taken public in 1996 and eventually sold to Axent Technologies for $240 million in 1998.

"I would say this company probably isn't ready for an IPO, but we feel we can take it to the next level in terms of return-on-investment for the [venture backers], and I don't think they're ready to sell the company," Steinkrauss said.

Other market watchers observed that Core faces mounting competition but that the company has a loyal following among large enterprise customers that will allow it to assess all of its options over the next several years in terms of growth, investment, and potential acquisition.

The overall market for automated penetration testing -- pioneered by Core -- will see continued expansion over the next several years, said Dr. Chenxi Wang, analyst at Forrester Research.

"I'm not entirely sure about their market position, but technology-wise they are very solid," Wang said. "The other tools on the market haven't surpassed Core, but there are more choices out there now compared to only several years ago when they were one of the few products on the market."

Wang said that Core is "absolutely" a potential target for acquisition by a larger vendor, and she agreed that IBM could be a likely suitor despite its buyout of Internet Security Systems just under one year ago, which armed Big Blue with some pen-testing products.

"Another buyer might be someone like Symantec. They've been trying to grow their services business for some time, and pen-testing might be something that fits their plans," said Wang. "Pen-testing could eventually become part of the larger systems assurance business, in which a lot of large vendors want to compete."