Forrester Names Palo Alto Networks a Leader in Attack Surface Management

Cortex Xpanse is recognized with the top vendor score in the strategy category, receiving the highest possible scores in the Vision, Innovation and Roadmap criteria.

Organizations are modernizing their network architectures by adopting new security models, cloud computing, SaaS and remote workforce support. This shift adds complexity to security efforts, stretching them thin as both known and unknown IT infrastructures expand. Assets made public-facing, intentionally or not, stand out to malicious actors. Attack surface management (ASM) solutions help organizations overcome this challenge by providing comprehensive visibility and controls to manage their entire attack surface.

In recognition of the growing importance of attack surface management, earlier this week, Forrester released The Forrester Wave™: Attack Surface Management, Q3 2024, covering top vendors helping organizations manage their attack surface. Today, we are excited to announce that Cortex Xpanse was named a leader in this first-ever Forrester ASM Wave and recognized with the top score in the strategy category, receiving the highest possible scores in the Vision, Innovation and Roadmap criteria.

Xpanse Receives 5/5 Scores in 10 Criteria for Attack Surface Management

The Forrester Wave™ helps buyers make informed technology decisions by evaluating vendors on the strength of their offerings, strategy and market presence. Forrester analysts conduct a comprehensive evaluation, including product demonstrations and feedback from reference customers, and assign scores to each area. Cortex Xpanse achieved the highest possible scores of 5 out of 5 in 10 of the evaluated criteria. Forrester defines a score of 5/5 as “Superior relative to others in this evaluation.” Here are a few criteria in which Palo Alto Networks received the highest possible scores and our take on why:

● Vision (5/5) – Our vision for attack surface management is to be the end-to-end solution for asset discovery, risk prioritization and automated risk reduction to lower the frequency and severity of security incidents across every attack vector, including external, endpoints, cloud workloads, IoT and OT assets.

● Innovation (5/5) – Our approach to innovation emphasizes delivering top-tier ASM capabilities, whether as a standalone solution or integrated within our AI-driven SecOps platform, Cortex XSIAM. Leveraging our proprietary Precision AI™ technology, we utilize a vast network of sensors and petabytes of high-quality data to enable real-time actions through advanced automation.

● Roadmap (5/5) – Our comprehensive and forward-thinking strategy addresses both immediate and future attack surface needs. Our planned enhancements, such as Automation-First Remediation powered by Precision AI™ and Immediate Zero Day Visibility, position us to proactively mitigate risks, streamline asset management, and optimize our response across the entire attack surface, driving measurable impact in both operational efficiency and security outcomes.

Attack Surface Management for the Next-Generation Security Operations Center

Organizations in every industry are seeing constant changes in their attack surfaces. Without ongoing visibility, these changes can result in unintentional exposures that cybercriminals are quick to exploit. According to the latest Unit 42 Incident Response Report, the largest attack campaigns began with the successful exploitation of internet-facing systems.

To effectively manage and protect their attack surfaces, companies must take a proactive stance, ensuring constant visibility and focusing on remediation efforts to keep their internet-facing infrastructure secure. Our approach helps organizations tackle these challenges with both a standalone ASM solution via Cortex Xpanse and as an integrated part of a broader unified SecOps platform within Cortex XSIAM. By building on the Cortex platform, we are able to unify PANW’s valuable data across the network, cloud and endpoint, leveraging sensors deployed across our large base of existing customers. We believe this recognition further affirms Palo Alto Networks position as the leader in security operations center (SOC) transformation with our AI-powered Cortex platform.

Palo Alto has proven innovation to back up its vision through R&D and acquisitions, including the recent purchase of IBM’s SecOps product suite. A culture of innovation is backed by a detailed ASM roadmap which includes new features like native vulnerability assessments, continued enhancements to remediation automation, and exposure management. [KR1]

– The Forrester Wave™: Attack Surface Management, Q3 2024

To us, this recognition as a leader by Forrester, with the highest possible scores in the Vision, Innovation and Roadmap criteria, demonstrates our ability to help organizations proactively shrink and secure their growing attack surface now and in the future. Our dedication to delivering the utmost security outcomes for our customers remains unwavering.

To learn more, download The Forrester Wave™: Attack Surface Management Solutions, Q3 2024 report today.