Cloud security posture management tools help in the identification and remediation of risks across cloud infrastructures, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). These tools continuously assess the security posture across multi-cloud environments by maintaining a current inventory of the cloud assets for proactive analysis and risk assessment to detect any misconfigurations. Once these misconfigurations are identified, security controls are developed and implemented. CSPM solutions also integrate with DevOps tools, streamlining the incident response process and ensuring continuous compliance with regulatory requirements and security frameworks by providing visibility of the cloud environment’s security posture.
Exposure assessment platforms (EAPs) continuously identify and prioritize exposures, such as vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, across a broad range of asset classes. They natively deliver or integrate with discovery capabilities, such as assessment tools, that enumerate exposures, like vulnerabilities and configuration issues, to increase visibility. EAPs use techniques like threat intelligence (TI) to analyze an organization’s attack surfaces and weaknesses, and prioritize treatment efforts for high-risk exposures by incorporating threat landscape, business and existing security control context. Through prioritized visualizations and treatment recommendations, EAPs help provide direction for mobilization, identifying the various teams involved in mitigation and remediation. EAPs are primarily delivered as self-hosted software or as a cloud service, and may use agents for exposure information collection.
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.
VA solutions identify, categorize and prioritize vulnerabilities as well as orchestrate their remediation or mitigation. Their primary focus is vulnerability and security configuration assessments for enterprise risk identification and reduction, and reporting against various compliance standards. VA can be delivered via on-premises, hosted and cloud-based solutions, and it may use appliances and agents. Core capabilities include: - Discovery, identification and reporting on device, OS, software vulnerabilities and configuration against security-related criteria - Establishing a baseline for systems, applications and databases to identify and track changes in state - Reporting options for compliance, control frameworks and multiple roles Standard capabilities include: - Pragmatic remediation prioritization with the ability to correlate vulnerability severity, asset context and threat context that then presents a better picture of true risk for your specific environment - Guidance for remediating and configuring compensating controls - Management of scanner instances, agents and gateways - Direct integration with, or API access to, asset management tools, workflow management tools and patch management tools