Report by Cymulate
Threat Exposure Validation Impact Report 2025
Key Findings
98% of organizations plan to invest in exposure management in the future.
89% of security teams have already begun to implement AI into their exposure validation processes.
67% say infrequent pen testing has left concerning gaps in security assessments.
71% of those surveyed consider threat exposure validation to be “absolutely essential”.
97% of respondents who use automated security control validation and measure their cyber effectiveness reported a positive impact since implementation.
Respondents stated that automated security validation enabled them to test over 200x more threats than manual testing.
89% of organizations plan to invest in exposure management in the next 12 months.
72% believe AI will play a significant role in exposure management.
90% of security leaders apply validation to their exposure management process at least once a month.
47% deprioritise exposure remediation due the effectiveness of compensating controls to prevent or detect an exploit.
61% of security leaders agree their organization lacks the ability to identify and remediate exposures in their cloud environment.
Organizations that run exposure processes at least once per month reported a 20% reduction in breaches.
84% of CISOs expressed concern over whether their cyber defenses could withstand an attack from a sophisticated threat actor
96% of organizations reported at least one security breach in the past year.
Almost two-thirds (approximately 66%) of security leaders say that missing exposures due to manual pen testing is an issue.