Gartner defines the application security testing (AST) market as consisting of providers of products that enable organizations to assess applications for the presence and management of risk. These products identify risk by evaluating source code, performing runtime tests and inspecting supply chain components. AST products can be integrated throughout development workflows for continuous assessment or be used to perform ad hoc evaluations. They enable organizations to manage application risks by providing an integrated set of capabilities for risk identification, prioritization and triage, policy evaluation and enforcement, and remediation assistance. Market offerings are available in on-premises, SaaS and hybrid delivery models. Organizations leverage AST products to assess applications for the presence of security vulnerabilities and other risks (e.g., legal and operational) throughout their life cycle. These assessments are used to measure and manage the risks within individual applications, application components or groups of applications in the context of their business criticality and other key attributes (e.g., environment, sensitive data handling, etc.). AST products further enable organizations to evaluate software for compliance with internal policies as well as regulatory requirements established by governments or authoritative industry groups.
Cyber asset attack surface management (CAASM) is focused on enabling security teams to overcome asset visibility and exposure challenges. It enables organizations to see all assets (internal and external), primarily through API integrations with existing tools, query consolidated data, identify the scope of vulnerabilities and gaps in security controls. These tools then continuously monitor and analyze detected vulnerabilities to drill down the most critical threats to the business and prioritize necessary remediation and mitigation actions for improved cyber security.
External Attack Surface Management (EASM) market refers to solutions that continuously discover, inventory, and monitor an organization’s internet‑facing digital assets from an attacker’s perspective. These platforms identify unknown or unmanaged assets, exposed services, misconfigurations, and vulnerabilities across cloud, SaaS, on‑premises, and third‑party environments. EASM solutions contextualize external exposures with risk scoring, threat intelligence, and business relevance to help organizations prioritize remediation efforts. The market exists to help cybersecurity teams proactively reduce exposure by maintaining visibility of their internet-facing assets. Who are the target users of External Attack Surface Management (EASM) Software? Typical users include cybersecurity teams, vulnerability management professionals, risk managers, and IT security leaders in organizations of all sizes. EASM solutions are especially valuable for enterprises with complex, distributed environments, frequent cloud adoption, or multiple subsidiaries and third-party relationships. Executives responsible for organizational risk and compliance also benefit from the enhanced visibility and reporting capabilities these platforms provide. What are the core capabilities of External Attack Surface Management (EASM) Software? Asset Discovery and Inventory: Identification of internet‑facing infrastructure (e.g., domains, subdomains, IPs, cloud assets, SaaS, APIs, certificates, shadow IT) Asset Attribution & Ownership Mapping Technology Fingerprinting (e.g., frameworks, CMS, web servers, open‑source components) Third‑Party and Subsidiary Mapping Continuous Monitoring & Change Detection: Change Detection (new services, DNS changes, IP reassignments, open ports) Asset Lifecycle Tracking (new, modified, decommissioned assets) Certificate Monitoring (expiration, weak cryptography, unauthorized issuance) Exposure & Vulnerability Identification: Open Port and Service Enumeration Configuration and Security Misconfiguration Detection Known Vulnerability Mapping (CVE/CWE) Insecure Protocol and Cipher Detection Unprotected Cloud Storage & APIs Expired or Weak Certificates Exposed Secrets (tokens, API keys) Risk Prioritization & Contextual Analysis Risk Scoring (asset‑level and organization‑level) Business Context Mapping (e.g., production vs dev, internet‑facing criticality) Exploitability Context Attack Path Visualization Integration with Threat Intelligence Feeds Attacker‑View Asset Mapping Known Attacker Techniques mapping (MITRE ATT&CK alignment) Remediation & Workflow Enablement Remediation Guidance (e.g., automated attack surface reduction suggestions) Integration with Ticketing Systems (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira) Security Tool Integrations (e.g., SIEM, SOAR, vulnerability scanners) Ownership Assignment & SLA Tracking Evidence and Verification of Fixes Reporting & Visualization Executive Dashboards Technical Analyst Views Asset and Risk Heatmaps Exposure Trends Over Time Custom Report Builder What are the benefits of External Attack Surface Management (EASM) Software? EASM software helps organizations proactively reduce their cyber risk by maintaining comprehensive visibility of all internet-facing assets and exposures. Security teams benefit from automated discovery, prioritized remediation, and streamlined workflows, enabling faster and more effective risk reduction. Executives and risk leaders gain confidence through real-time dashboards, trend analysis, and clear evidence of remediation, supporting stronger governance, compliance, and organizational resilience against external threats.
The mobile AST market is composed of buyers and sellers of products and services that analyze and identify vulnerabilities in applications used with mobile platforms (iOS, Android and Windows 10 Mobile) during or post development. Many variations and flavors of techniques exist, but fundamentally mobile AST solutions test applications in three main ways: (1) SAST: These solutions statically analyze the source, binary or bytecode of an application to identify vulnerabilities. (2) Behavioral testing: Mobile AST solutions use behavioral analysis to observe the behavior of the app during runtime and identify actions that could be exploited by an attacker. (3) DAST: These solutions also use dynamic analysis to test the app in its runtime state. DAST simulates attacks against an application and analyzes the application's reactions, determining whether it is vulnerable.
The security threat intelligence products and services market refers to the combination of products and services that deliver knowledge (context, mechanisms, indicators, implications and action-oriented advice), information and data about cybersecurity threats, threat actors and other cybersecurity-related issues. The output of these products and services aims to provide or assist in the curation of information about the identities, motivations, characteristics and methods of threats, commonly referred to as tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs). The intent is to enable better decision making and improve security technology capabilities to reduce the likelihood and impact of a potential compromise. Threat intelligence (TI) products and services support the different stages of a TI process life cycle. In particular, this involves defining the aims and objectives, collecting and processing intelligence originating from various sources, analyzing and disseminating it to different stakeholders within the organization, and regularly providing feedback on the entire process. These products and services support ongoing security investigations and assist in preventing future breaches by prioritizing infrastructure hardening. TI tools and services are most commonly cloud-based products and services, but can also be delivered “as a service.”
Gartner defines software supply chain security (SSCS) tools as those that enable the building of secure software by protecting against compromises during development and delivery. These protections extend to source code, developer identities, development tools, delivery pipelines, and postdeployment patches. SSCS tools reduce third-party risks through policy-based curation of dependencies, software composition analysis (SCA) and software bill of materials (SBOM) inspection. They ensure artifact provenance and traceability with signing and verification as they pass through development and delivery pipelines. SSCS tools support SaaS and hybrid deployment models, and complement DevOps platforms in improving the organization’s DevSecOps maturity.