Gartner® doesn't create new categories lightly. Generally speaking, a new acronym only emerges when the industry's collective "to-do list" has become mathematically impossible to complete. And so it seems that the introduction of the Exposure Assessment Platforms (EAP) category is a formal admission that traditional Vulnerability Management (VM) is no longer a viable way to secure a modern enterprise.

The shift from the traditional Market Guide for Vulnerability Assessment to the new Magic Quadrant for EAPs represents a move away from the "vulnerability hose", i.e., the endless stream of CVEs, and toward a model of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). To us, this is more than just a change in terminology; it is an attempt to solve the "Dead End" paradox that has plagued security teams for a decade.

In the inaugural Magic Quadrant report of this category, Gartner evaluated 20 vendors for their ability to support continuous discovery, risk-informed prioritization, and integrated visibility across cloud, on-prem, and identity layers. In this article, we'll take a deep dive into the key findings of the report, the drivers behind the new category, the features that define it, and what we see as the takeaways for security teams.

Why Exposure Assessment Is Gaining Ground

Security tools have always promised risk reduction, but they've mostly delivered noise. One product would reveal a misconfiguration. Another would log a privilege drift. A third would flag vulnerable external-facing assets. The result is a crisis of volume that has led to chronic alert fatigue in the SOC. Each tool provided a piece of the puzzle, yet none were able to put all the pieces together and explain how exposure forms...or what to fix first to avoid it.

The skepticism toward legacy VM tools is well-earned. Data from over 15,000 environments shows that 74% of identified exposures are "dead ends", existing on assets that have no viable path to a critical system. In the old model, a security team might spend 90% of its remediation effort fixing these dead ends, yielding effectively zero reduction in risk to business processes.

This is what EAPs are designed to address. They pull all those pieces into a unified view that tracks how systems, identities, and vulnerabilities interact in real environments and show how an attacker could actually use it to move from a low-risk dev environment to critical assets.

This model is gaining traction because it reflects how attackers operate. Threat actors don't limit themselves to a single flaw. They have weak controls, misaligned privileges, and blind spots in detection. The EAP model tracks how exposures accumulate across environments and lead attackers to reachable assets. Platforms in this category are built to show where risk originates, how it spreads, and which conditions support attacker movement.

Gartner projects that organizations using this approach will reduce unplanned downtime by 30% by 2027. That kind of dramatic outcome is based on an equally dramatic change in how exposure is defined, modeled, and operationalized across environments. The shift touches every layer of the security workflow - from how signals are connected to how teams decide what to fix first.

Drill Down: From Static Lists to Exposure in Motion

That shift in workflow begins with how EAPs detect and connect the conditions that lead to risk. Exposure assessment platforms take a different approach than traditional vulnerability tools. They're built around a distinct set of capabilities:

• They consolidate discovery across environments. EAPs continuously scan internal networks, cloud workloads, and user-facing systems to identify both known and untracked assets, alongside unmanaged identities, misconfigured roles, and legacy systems that may not appear in standard inventories.
• They prioritize based on context, not just severity. Exposure is ranked using multiple parameters - asset importance, access paths, exploitability, and control coverage. This allows teams to see which issues are reachable, which are isolated, and which enable lateral movement.
• They integrate exposure data into operational workflows. EAP output is designed to support action. Platforms connect with IT and security tools so findings can be assigned, tracked, and resolved through existing systems - without waiting for a quarterly audit or manual review.
• They support lifecycle tracking. Once exposures are identified, EAPs monitor them across remediation steps, configuration changes, and policy updates. That visibility helps teams understand what's been fixed, what remains, and how each adjustment affects risk posture.

What the Quadrant Reveals About Market Maturity

The new Magic Quadrant highlights a split in the market. On one side, you have legacy incumbents attempting to "bolt on" exposure features to their existing scanning engines. On the other, you have native Exposure Management players who have been modeling attacker behavior for years.

The maturity of the category is evidenced by a shift in the "definition of done." Success is no longer measured by how many vulnerabilities were patched, but by how many critical attack paths were eliminated. Platforms like XM Cyber, which were built on attack graph-based modeling, are now leading the way for this approach.

What Security Teams Should Be Watching

Exposure assessment now stands as its own category, with defined capabilities, evaluation criteria, and a growing role in enterprise workflows. The platforms in the Magic Quadrant are identifying connected exposures, mapping which assets can be reached, and guiding remediation based on attacker movement.

For the practitioner, the immediate value is efficiency. These platforms are making decisions about what to fix first, how to assign ownership, and where risk reduction will have the most impact. Exposure assessment is now positioned as a core layer in how environments are secured, maintained, and understood. If you can mathematically prove that 74% of your alerts can be safely ignored, you aren't just "improving security" – you're returning time and resources to a team that is likely already at its breaking point. The EAP category is finally aligning security metrics with business reality. The question is no longer "How many vulnerabilities do we have?" but "Are we safe from the attack paths that matter?"

To learn more about why XM Cyber was named a challenger in the 2025 Magic Quadrant for exposure assessment platforms, grab your copy of the report here.

Note: This article was expertly written and contributed by Maya Malevich, Head of Product Marketing at XM Cyber.

Gartner Disclaimer: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Exposure Assessment Platforms, By Mitchell Schneider, Dhivya Poole, and Jonathan Nunez, November 10, 2025. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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