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CyCognito vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse

Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse: Your Attack Surface Left in the Dark

Why Customers Choose CyCognito over
Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse

Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse is an enterprise-grade port scanner. The passive scanning that port scanners perform misses most risks, like those affecting web applications or related to network security, that can only be detected by more active tests.

This missing information results in incomplete and inaccurate prioritization, wasted time validating whether risks truly exist, and misdirected remediation efforts. Even when CVEs are identified, port scanners cannot validate if vulnerabilities are actually present or exploitable. Cortex Xpanse excels at delivering lists of thousands of assets with potentially problematic open ports. Unless your team has hundreds of pentesters to manually assess and validate each of them, you’ll need automatic testing and validation to find the few exploitable exposures that matter. You’ll need CyCognito.

Organization Discovery & Mapping

Use deep discovery to see what an attacker sees.

Cortex Xpanse
Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse limited discovery leaves you with blind spots.
  • Cortex Xpanse ignores the organization’s business structure, forcing you to map assets manually
  • Cortex Xpanse focuses on known domains and IPs, leaving critical assets like web applications, APIs, and cloud instances in the dark
  • Cortex Xpanse can’t show risk on the subsidiary or regional level and cannot identify critical areas for security investment and improvement
CyCognito eliminates blindspots by mapping your organization and continuously updating it as your business changes.
  • CyCognito uses natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and a graph data model to automatically map the organization and identify subsidiaries
  • CyCognito goes beyond IPs and domains covering web applications, data centers, SaaS, IaaS, brands, acquired companies, joint ventures, and cloud environments
  • CyCognito categorizes subsidiaries based on risk score and creates a plan to improve their security posture

Zero-Input Discovery

Find your unknown unknowns.

Cortex Xpanse
Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse misses key asset types, keeping your unknown assets in the dark.
  • Cortex Xpanse requires seed data and extensive customer input, while their Known Asset Monitoring feature restricts meaningful scanning to previously known assets
  • Cortex Xpanse performs limited asset classification based on banner grabbing
  • Asset business context must be added manually
CyCognito doesn’t rely on what you know to find what you don’t.
  • CyCognito requires zero-input, zero-seeds, zero configuration, and zero onboarding
  • CyCognito uses OSINT-based reconnaissance techniques to attribute and contextualize the entire attack surface and identify unknown unknowns
  • Attribution context is added automatically

Automated Unauthenticated Security Testing

High confidence automated risk validation for all assets.

Cortex Xpanse
Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse leverages limited, low fidelity, disruptive testing.
  • Cortex Xpanse relies primarily on passive scanning, missing threat vectors that can only be evaluated with active tests, like web applications (using DAST)
  • Cortex Xpanse’s active testing only evaluates 100 CVEs, requires scheduling, and is potentially disruptive
CyCognito actively and non-intrusively tests for 10,000s of CVEs with more than 80,000 tests.
  • CyCognito’s automated, unauthenticated security tests span 35+ categories, including DAST for web applications,OWASP Top 10, weak credentials, broken authentication, subdomain takeover, exploitable vulnerabilities, and data exposure
  • CyCognito’s testing engines cover 100% of your exposed attack surface on customizable cadences, even for attack surfaces that contain millions of assets and tens of thousands of web applications

Accelerated Red Teaming

Maximize the results of your pen testing.

Cortex Xpanse
Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse leaves red teams wasting time on asset discovery and basic tests.
  • Cortex Xpanse relies on passive scanning, leading to wasted time validating false positives and misses real risks
  • Cortex Xpanse fails to provide crucial asset context and attribution information
  • Cortex Xpanse doesn’t discover unknown unknowns, leaving many assets in the dark and untested
CyCognito’s single source of truth scales your red team and makes your pen-testing budget go further.
  • CyCognito’s suite of +80,000 unauthenticated automated remote checks reduces repetitive work
  • CyCognito supplies context and attribution for all external assets, making pen test information easier to operationalize
  • CyCognito provides the coverage, accuracy and frequency required to understand gaps in security posture

Risk-based Issue Prioritization

Focus on risks, not on issues.

Cortex Xpanse
Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse misses key context, assets, and issues, leading to ineffective prioritization.
  • TCortex Xpanse identifies and categorizes assets with low confidence and minimal evidence, leading to inaccurate prioritization and wasted time
  • Cortex Xpanse relies primarily on passive scanning and fails to account for factors like exploitability and asset attractiveness, slowing MTTR
  • Inadequate seed-based asset discovery means many assets are missed and aren’t prioritized
CyCognito’s prioritization considers asset attractiveness to attackers, business context, targeted threat intelligence, and results from +80,000 tests.
  • CyCognito’s next-gen prioritization algorithms identify less than 0.1% of issues as critical, focusing your teams on the top risks to your attack surface
  • CyCognito prioritizes every issue alongside verifiable evidence of exploitability, enabling a >60% reduction in MTTR, often days instead of weeks
  • CyCognito’s comprehensive asset discovery ensures every potential risk is assessed and prioritized

Remediation Validation and Integrations

Minimize errors, maximize efficiency.

Cortex Xpanse
Palo Alto Networks Cortex Xpanse lacks critical integrations and configuration capabilities.
  • Cortex Xpanse has been criticized by leading industry analysts as lacking integrations and connectors for data ingestion
  • Cortex Xpanse requires customer support for basic configuration and management tasks like adding or deleting assets
CyCognito works directly with leading security solutions like Splunk, ServiceNow, and Armis.
  • CyCognito supports over 1,200 integrations and apps that help you work seamlessly, centralize information, and boost collaboration
  • CyCognito customers can configure and manage their attack surface directly within the UI
Customer Story

“CyCognito is worth every cent we pay and it helps me sleep better because I know we’re checking our internet-facing assets on a regular basis.”

Benjamin Bachmann | Vice President, Group Information Security

Read the Customer Story
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Accelerate your risk remediation

Getting results without disrupting business is essential for CIOs.

With the CyCognito platform, you can manage your risk confidently and intentionally to minimize your organization’s risk exposure. Learn about our revolutionary approach to external cyber risk management. Discover more about our solutions and how we help organizations identify, understand and master their risk in profound new ways.

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