The Attack Surface Management (ASM) solutions are being widely adopted, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.6% between now and 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights. This expansion is fueled by numerous vendors, each promising solutions that enhance visibility, optimize resources, and improve regulatory compliance. In an increasingly competitive landscape, leveraging analyst reports is essential for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each offering and discerning whether their claims withstand scrutiny.
Today, ASM is more critical than ever, as rapid digitalization amplifies the number and complexity of an organization’s digital assets. In such a dynamic environment, security leaders often struggle to keep track of every potential risk. In fact, almost three-quarters of CISOs report experiencing a security incident due to unmanaged or unknown assets.
This blog post will compare key vendors in the attack surface management market, drawing on analyst insights that position Hadrian as a top-tier solution.
The evolving attack surface management market
As digital attack surfaces have become increasingly dynamic, the attack surface management market has similarly evolved in response. According to the GigaOm Radar for Attack Surface Management report, ASM has matured significantly in recent years, moving beyond simple asset discovery to incorporate more sophisticated tools, including proactive risk mitigation and automation solutions.
Modern ASM solutions are transitioning from basic asset discovery to integrated, contextualized risk validation. They operate in close conjunction with existing security processes, acknowledging the vast and diverse digital ecosystems that organizations manage today. GigaOm also observes a shift toward unified platforms that encompass risk scoring, continuous discovery, and automation. Enterprises are increasingly seeking unified security approaches over siloed solutions, a trend reflected in the market's direction. Vendors like Armis and Qualys are recognized in the GigaOm report for their strengths in providing holistic, forward-looking platforms.
A clear inclination within the attack surface management market is toward vendors emphasizing innovation and comprehensive platform plays. GigaOm's analysis highlights a noticeable embrace of innovation over sheer maturity, indicating strong market dynamism and ongoing technological advancement. The higher density of vendors in the Platform Play hemisphere of the GigaOm Radar further suggests an industry movement toward integrated solutions rather than point products.
Some vendors, including Hadrian, are positioned as both Leaders and Fast Movers in this space, indicating that it is possible to offer forward-looking ASM tools that are robust and well-established. Hadrian, in particular, distinguishes itself through an AI-driven offensive security platform that continuously emulates real-world attacker behavior. The notable number of Fast Movers situated just outside GigaOm’s Leaders Circle indicates a dynamic attack surface management market where leading vendors' positions are regularly shifting. While the ASM space has already shown significant evolution in recent years, further changes are highly probable.
Key evaluation criteria for the attack surface management market
Given the increasingly crowded attack surface management market, clear frameworks for vendor assessment are crucial. GigaOm's evaluation framework is built upon three primary factors: key features, emerging features, and business criteria.
When evaluating key features, GigaOm compares solution performance in areas such as attack path analysis, vulnerability assessment, risk scoring, asset categorization, and third-party risk identification. For instance, attack path analysis is vital for security teams to prioritize remediation efforts, as it helps them understand how seemingly isolated weaknesses can combine to form dangerous attack paths into an organization’s infrastructure.
Emerging features in GigaOm’s assessment include dark web monitoring and custom threat intelligence. While these features may not yet be mainstream, they are anticipated to become more prevalent in the attack surface management market over the next 12 to 18 months. Hadrian’s ASM solution already incorporates these capabilities through its Infostealer Infection Detection feature, proactively monitoring dark web marketplaces for stolen credentials and session tokens to provide early warning of compromise. Approximately 56.8% of content on the dark web is linked to illicit purposes, underscoring the importance of ASM tools that can monitor this shadowy corner of the internet for leaked data and vulnerability discussions.
Regarding business criteria, such as a solution’s flexibility, scalability, discovery frequency, and ease of use, GigaOm’s report assesses whether vendors offer tools adaptable to diverse digital environments and organizational needs. Another critical consideration is a solution's ability to handle the expanding complexity and size of attack surfaces without compromising performance or security. Such criteria are fundamental in distinguishing the leading players.
Hadrian’s analyst-verified differentiators in the attack surface management market
For organizations seeking a sophisticated, scalable, and easy-to-use solution in the attack surface management market, Hadrian warrants significant consideration. The GigaOm report identifies Hadrian as a Leader & Fast Mover in the Innovation/Platform quadrant, acknowledging its positive scores for attack path analysis, active vulnerability validation, and AI-driven risk scoring. Hadrian is also recognized for its intuitive UX, broad applicability (relevant for SMBs and enterprises), and continuous discovery capabilities.
Beyond GigaOm, Hadrian has garnered praise from other market analysts. A recent report by Frost & Sullivan highlights Hadrian’s offensive security approach, which redefines External Attack Surface Management (EASM) to be more proactive in the face of rapid digitalization. Frost & Sullivan saves particular praise for the continuous validation provided by Hadrian’s Orchestrator AI, an event-driven threat validation engine that continuously scans for vulnerabilities in real time.
Furthermore, the Frost & Sullivan report praises Hadrian for its automated penetration testing and exploit simulations, its low rate of false positives, its pace of innovation, customer alignment, and cost reduction. As Frost & Sullivan states, “Hadrian transforms EASM with its agile innovation and offensive security approach… Hadrian enables organizations to understand their digital footprint, prioritize risks, and proactively reduce their attack surface”. Hadrian's ability to save security teams over 10 hours per week through automated triage and reduce remediation time by 80% with clear, reproduction-ready guidance directly addresses the common problem of unprioritized alerts. This allows security teams to focus on decisive action rather than sifting through noise.
The real-world impact for security teams
Organizations face the danger of being overwhelmed by the sheer number of digital assets that make up their network, not to mention the unknown ones that cyberattackers are working to penetrate in secret. Manually investigating every potential risk is an inefficient use of resources. This is why attack surface management solutions without a robust, AI-driven validation layer risk inundating security teams with unprioritized noise.
Hadrian’s real-time, exploit-based validation cuts through this noise with its automated asset discovery functionality. Frost & Sullivan points out that Hadrian’s automation features streamline organizations’ mean time to remediate (MTTR), boosting productivity by reducing the need for manual pentests, which are often labor-intensive and prone to human error. Hadrian updates ASM for the modern age by providing an always-on, AI-driven view into exploitable risks.
Choosing a modern ASM partner
Your website, mobile apps, software, and even new IoT platforms may be rigorously scoured for bugs. But what about the digital assets you don’t even know about? Just because they are unknown to you doesn’t mean they aren’t on a cyberattacker’s radar.
If you lack clear visibility into every possible attack vector—encompassing both known and unknown assets—you cannot effectively prevent attackers from infiltrating your network. Today’s businesses are constantly evolving their digital offerings, which often creates numerous hidden routes into your network, including assets that are no longer in use. This means attack surfaces are continuously in flux. Continuous validation is the only way to ensure attack surface management oversees the totality of your assets, both known and unknown.
Hadrian uniquely combines asset discovery, exploit simulation, and actionable guidance as part of an offensive, AI-driven solution that discovers, validates, and contextualizes threats in real time. Get more from your security team when you provide them with clear, validated risks and precise instructions on where to focus their efforts.
