Top Trends in Automated Security Validation for 2024

Automated security validation (ASV) is now a staple in the cybersecurity space as more and more security teams realize how valuable the automation piece is for their SecOps. Security leadership, and CISOs in particular, can also greatly benefit from ASV vendors that provide reporting and data-based analytics.  

Frost & Sullivan has recently published its Frost Radar Automated Security Validation 2024 report, which highlights the top eight companies in the security validation market based on their growth and innovation. 

Among these companies, Cymulate has been recognized as a market leader. This recognition underscores Cymulate's ability to internalize market trends and effectively incorporate them into its product development. 

Below is a list of the top cybersecurity trends for 2024 that Cymulate has integrated into its product roadmap:

1. Cloud Security Validation

With more businesses migrating to the cloud, ensuring robust security in these environments is vital. Cymulate has made significant strides in this area, releasing cloud-focused attack simulation templates and resources. These tools help organizations effectively simulate and defend against potential cloud-based threats.

Swetha Krishnamoorthi, Frost & Sullivan's industry principal of cybersecurity, elaborated, “Cymulate understands the challenges enterprises face in securing cloud and hybrid environments. To address these issues, the company released cloud-focused attack simulation templates and resources in August 2023, covering all major public cloud providers. Cymulate’s R&D initiatives have cloud security validation as one of the major themes, with plans to augment cloud penetration testing and cloud detection engineering capabilities in the near term.”

2. Exposure Prioritization

Security teams are overwhelmed by the large number of exposures found in their organizations, so they look for ways to prioritize and reduce their patching workloads. Traditional prioritization strategies usually hinge on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and threat intelligence regarding known exploits, active campaigns, and industry threats.

Rather than simply prioritizing based on external information, the Cymulate platform aggregates data on your exposures and uses automated security validation to assess whether those exposures can be exploited in your specific environment. This contextualized prioritization ensures that security teams focus on the most critical threats to their organization, optimizing remediation efforts​​ and operational processes.

3. Applied Threat Intelligence

With new threats emerging daily, it's difficult for organizations to keep up with manually assessing the latest threat. The Cymulate Threat Research Group monitors emerging threats and adds a new assessment to the platform within 24 hours so that organizations can automatically identify whether the latest threat can be exploited in our environment. This feature can also be programmed to auto-run so that the security team only needs to be informed if a threat gets through and remediation is required.

4. Product Consolidation

In response to the increasing complexity of cybersecurity ecosystems, product consolidation has become a significant trend in ASV. Organizations are looking to simplify their security operations by integrating multiple security functions into a single, cohesive platform.

Cymulate leads this trend with a comprehensive security validation platform that unifies Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS), Continuous Automated Red Teaming (CART), Attack Surface Management (ASM), and Exposure Analytics. By consolidating these capabilities, Cymulate provides a streamlined approach to security validation, reducing the operational burden on security teams and enhancing overall efficiency.  

Conclusion

As we move into 2024 and beyond, ASV continues to transform and incorporate solutions to today’s biggest cyber challenges. Cymulate’s progress and recognition in ASV highlight the cutting-edge solutions available for organizations aiming to proactively strengthen their cyber defenses.  

If you would like to get a full copy of the Frost Radar: Automated Security Validation, 2024 report, click here.