Attack Surface Management has evolved from a niche discipline into a core component of exposure management. The 2025 Gartner Hype Cycle placed Continuous Threat Exposure Management at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, with ASM as the foundational technology. The core challenge is simple: organizations don’t know what they expose to the internet. Shadow IT, cloud sprawl, M&A-inherited assets, and third-party connections create attack surfaces that traditional vulnerability scanners miss because they only scan known assets. ASM discovers the unknowns.

The market is splitting between external ASM (discovering internet-facing assets) and comprehensive exposure management platforms that combine EASM with vulnerability management, CIEM, DSPM, and risk scoring. CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, and Microsoft are building the latter.

How We Evaluated

We assessed discovery breadth across IPv4/IPv6, cloud, SaaS, certificates, and DNS. Attribution accuracy mattered, meaning correctly linking discovered assets to the organization with low false positives. Risk prioritization that accounts for exploitability, exposure, and business impact was key. Continuous monitoring frequency and depth for change detection counted. Integration with vulnerability management, SIEM, CMDB, and remediation workflows was important, along with third-party risk capabilities to assess supply chain and vendor attack surface.

1. CrowdStrike Falcon Exposure Management

Score: 95/100

CrowdStrike’s Falcon Exposure Management combines external attack surface discovery with internal vulnerability assessment, identity risk, and cloud misconfigurations in a single exposure management platform. The integration with the Falcon agent provides validated internal context that pure-EASM vendors lack.

Unified exposure management covers EASM, vulnerability assessment, identity risk, and cloud misconfiguration in one platform. The Falcon agent provides internal asset validation, confirming which discovered assets have endpoint protection. ExPRT.AI risk scoring combines exploitability, exposure, and threat intelligence for prioritization. Continuous internet-facing asset discovery with change detection alerting. Charlotte AI provides natural language exposure queries and risk summaries. Integration with Falcon XDR for correlated exposure-to-threat analysis.

Best for: CrowdStrike Falcon customers wanting unified exposure management that connects external attack surface to internal security posture

2. Palo Alto Cortex Xpanse

Score: 93/100

Cortex Xpanse provides the most comprehensive internet-scale asset discovery, scanning the entire IPv4 space multiple times daily. Now integrated into the Cortex XSIAM platform, Xpanse connects attack surface discovery directly to SOC workflows for rapid remediation.

Scans the entire IPv4 address space multiple times daily for comprehensive discovery. Expander module maps internet-facing assets, services, and certificates to your organization. Link module assesses third-party and supply chain attack surface exposure. XSIAM integration connects discovery findings to automated remediation playbooks. Active Response module automatically remediates exposed RDP, databases, and misconfigured services. Largest internet scanning infrastructure in the EASM market.

Best for: Large enterprises wanting the most comprehensive internet-scale asset discovery with automated remediation through XSIAM

3. Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management

Score: 90/100

Microsoft Defender EASM (formerly RiskIQ, acquired 2021) leverages Microsoft’s internet-scale infrastructure to discover and map external assets. Integration with the Defender suite and Sentinel SIEM provides a unified workflow from discovery to remediation.

RiskIQ heritage provides one of the largest internet datasets for asset discovery. Integration with Defender for Cloud, Defender XDR, and Microsoft Sentinel. Asset classification using ML reduces false positives in attribution. Vulnerability intelligence from Microsoft’s massive telemetry base. Dashboard maps discovered assets against known CVEs and misconfigurations. Competitive pricing bundled with Microsoft security licensing.

Best for: Microsoft Defender customers wanting integrated EASM that feeds directly into existing Defender and Sentinel workflows

4. Mandiant Attack Surface Management (Google)

Score: 88/100

Mandiant ASM, now under Google Cloud, leverages Mandiant’s incident response and threat intelligence expertise to prioritize attack surface findings by real-world exploitability. The platform’s strength is its threat intelligence context: Mandiant knows which exposures threat actors actually target.

Mandiant threat intelligence context prioritizes findings by real-world attacker behavior. Active asset discovery with service enumeration and vulnerability detection. Technology stack fingerprinting identifies exposed software versions and components. Integration with Google Chronicle SIEM and Mandiant Threat Intelligence. Threat actor targeting data shows which industries and assets are actively targeted. Incident response expertise informs risk scoring and remediation priorities.

Best for: Organizations wanting threat intelligence-driven attack surface management that prioritizes exposures by real-world attacker targeting

5. Censys

Score: 86/100

Censys, founded by the creators of the ZMap internet scanner at the University of Michigan, provides one of the most technically rigorous internet scanning platforms. The Censys Search engine indexes the entire internet and enables organizations to find their assets and exposures.

Founded by ZMap creators with deep technical expertise in internet-scale scanning. Comprehensive internet dataset covering IPv4, IPv6, cloud providers, and certificates. Rapid7 vulnerability data integration enriches findings with CVE context. Cloud connector auto-discovery for AWS, Azure, and GCP assets. Censys Search provides an internet search engine for security research and asset discovery. Strong for organizations with complex multi-cloud and hybrid infrastructure.

Best for: Security-mature organizations wanting technically rigorous internet scanning with comprehensive IPv4/IPv6 and cloud asset discovery

6. Qualys EASM

Score: 84/100

Qualys EASM extends the Qualys Cloud Platform with external attack surface discovery, connecting internet-facing asset findings to Qualys’s established vulnerability management, patch management, and compliance capabilities.

Native integration with Qualys VMDR for unified external-to-internal vulnerability management. Cloud-based scanning with no infrastructure to deploy. Certificate monitoring and SSL/TLS configuration assessment. Asset attribution using machine learning to reduce false positives. Compliance mapping for PCI DSS, NIST, and other frameworks. Strong for organizations already using Qualys for vulnerability management.

Best for: Qualys VMDR customers wanting EASM integrated into their existing vulnerability management program

7. Tenable Attack Surface Management

Score: 82/100

Tenable ASM (formerly Bit Discovery, acquired 2023) integrates external attack surface discovery into the Tenable One exposure management platform. The platform connects external findings with Nessus vulnerability data, cloud security posture, and identity risk.

Integration with Tenable One for unified exposure management across external, internal, cloud, and identity. Nessus vulnerability data enriches external findings with CVE and exploit intelligence. Continuous internet-facing asset monitoring with change alerting. Lumin Exposure View provides risk-based prioritization across all exposure types. Strong for organizations using Tenable for internal vulnerability management. Web application scanning integrated alongside EASM.

Best for: Tenable customers wanting EASM integrated into their Tenable One exposure management program

8. CyCognito

Score: 80/100

CyCognito provides EASM with an emphasis on attacker simulation. The platform discovers assets and prioritizes risks by simulating how an attacker would find and exploit them. The approach provides a more realistic risk assessment than vulnerability-score-based prioritization.

Attacker-perspective discovery simulates how adversaries find and map your assets. Risk prioritization based on attacker exploitability rather than just CVSS scores. Automated validation tests whether exposures are actually exploitable. Business context mapping connects assets to business units and owners. Strong for M&A due diligence and third-party risk assessment. Good for organizations wanting to understand risk from an attacker’s perspective.

Best for: Organizations wanting attacker-perspective discovery and risk assessment that simulates real-world attack paths to prioritize remediation

9. Bitsight

Score: 78/100

Bitsight provides security ratings and external risk assessment, primarily used for third-party risk management and cyber insurance underwriting. While not a traditional EASM tool, Bitsight’s continuous monitoring of external security posture serves overlapping use cases.

Industry-leading security ratings used by cyber insurers and enterprises for risk assessment. Third-party and supply chain risk monitoring across thousands of organizations. Continuous external monitoring of security posture indicators. Benchmarking against industry peers and sectors. Board-ready reporting for cybersecurity risk communication. Regulatory compliance mapping for SEC, DORA, and other frameworks.

Best for: Organizations focused on third-party risk management, cyber insurance optimization, and board-level cybersecurity risk communication

10. SecurityScorecard

Score: 76/100

SecurityScorecard provides security ratings and attack surface intelligence with a focus on supply chain risk management. The platform monitors over 12 million organizations globally and provides A-F letter grade ratings used in vendor risk assessments.

A-F security ratings for over 12 million organizations globally. Supply chain risk management with vendor questionnaire automation. Automatic evidence collection for vendor security assessments. Attack surface intelligence with IP reputation, DNS health, and certificate monitoring. Marketplace of vendor risk management integrations. Good for procurement and vendor risk management workflows.

Best for: Organizations using security ratings for vendor risk management and supply chain security assessment

Where the Market Is Heading

Several trends are shaping the ASM market in 2026.

EASM is merging into exposure management. Standalone EASM is being absorbed into broader platforms. CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, Tenable, and Microsoft now include EASM as one component of unified exposure management.

CTEM is driving adoption. Gartner’s Continuous Threat Exposure Management framework is pushing organizations to adopt continuous attack surface monitoring rather than periodic assessments.

Third-party risk is integrating with EASM. EASM and security ratings from Bitsight and SecurityScorecard are converging as organizations need to monitor both their own and their vendors’ attack surfaces.

AI is improving attribution. Machine learning improves asset attribution accuracy, reducing the false positives that historically plagued EASM tools.

Cloud and SaaS discovery is expanding scope. Traditional EASM focused on IP addresses and domains. Modern platforms must discover cloud resources, SaaS tenants, and API endpoints.