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GigaOm Radar for Attack Surface Management

The expansion of an organization's attack surface continues to present a critical business challenge. Download the GigaOm Radar for Attack Surface Management to get an overview of the available ASM solutions, identify leading offerings, and evaluate the best solution for you.  More...

CyCognito vs Microsoft Defender EASM

Microsoft Defender EASM: Unknown Unknowns, Unidentified and Untested

Why Customers Choose CyCognito over
Microsoft Defender EASM

Despite labeling itself as an attack surface management product, Microsoft’s Defender EASM lacks the most fundamental capability: it cannot find so-called unknown unknown assets. Instead, Defender EASM relies on users providing lists of known seed assets to populate their map of the attack surface. As a result, unknown unknowns – which Defender EASM calls “outliers” – stay in the dark and can’t be contextualized, tested, or prioritized.

Defender EASM also falls short when it comes to risk validation – Defender EASM relies on passive scanning, which misses most risks, like those affecting web applications or related to network security, that can only be detected by more active tests. Even the coverage Defender EASM does offer, like risk from the OWASP Top 10, relies on lower confidence methods with high false positive rates. This missing information results in incomplete and inaccurate prioritization, wasted time validating whether “critical” risks actually exist, and misdirected remediation efforts.

Organization Discovery & Mapping

Use deep discovery to see what an attacker sees.

Microsoft Defender EASM
Microsoft Defender EASM misses unknown unknown assets and key asset types.
  • Defender EASM assembles an organizational view after asset discovery is complete, not before and misses key parts of your attack surface
  • Defender EASM cannot find unknown unknowns, leaving assets and subsidiaries – and their risks – in the dark
  • Defender EASM does not identify subsidiary organizations or assess their risk based on the assets they manage
CyCognito starts by mapping your organization and continuously updates it as your business changes.
  • CyCognito uses natural language processing, machine learning, and a graph data model to automatically map the organization, and identify subsidiaries
  • CyCognito goes beyond owned environments, 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.

Microsoft Defender EASM
Microsoft Defender EASM cannot keep up with your dynamic attack surface.
  • Defender EASM’s discovery process uses seed data and does not identify “outlier” assets
  • Defender EASM’s manual discovery process requires extensive human intervention and cannot automatically adjust to changes in your assets or attack surface
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

Automated Unauthenticated Security Testing

High confidence automated risk validation for all assets.

Microsoft Defender EASM
Microsoft Defender EASM relies on limited, low fidelity, disruptive passive testing.
  • Defender EASM’s offers no active testing, missing threat vectors that can only be evaluated with active tests, like web applications (using DAST)
  • Defender EASM’s passive scanning is noisy and identifies only limited number of risks, leaving most of your attack surface in the dark and untested
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.

Microsoft Defender EASM
Microsoft Defender EASM leaves red teams wasting time on asset discovery and basic tests.
  • Defender EASM relies on passive scanning, leading to wasted time validating false positives and misses real risks
  • Defender EASM fails to provide crucial asset context and attribution information
  • Defender EASM doesn’t discover unknown unknowns, leaving the riskiest 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.

Microsoft Defender EASM
Microsoft Defender EASM misses key context, assets, and issues, leading to ineffective prioritization.
  • Defender EASM’s prioritization is ineffective, identifying over 7% of issues as critical
  • Defender EASM can only prioritize based on CVSS, failing to consider business risk, asset context, active testing results or issue exploitability
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 most critical 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

Remediation Validation and Integrations

Minimize errors, maximize efficiency.

Microsoft Defender EASM
Microsoft Defender EASM lack of connectors and remediation tools slows MTTR.
  • Defender EASM only uses two primary data connectors: Microsoft’s Log Analytics and Azure Data Explorer
  • Defender EASM alone cannot validate remediation success, requiring manual followup
  • Defender EASM lacks the ability to build a remediation plan to guide systematic improvements
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’s Remediation Validation feature automatically checks if a remediation attempt has been successful
  • CyCognito’s Remediation Planner tool builds remediation plans to improve the security posture of organizations and their subsidiaries
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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