A false negative occurs when a cyber threat or attack passes through scanning and protection software undetected.

There are a number of reasons a false negative happens: the attack is dormant, it is a highly sophisticated file-less threat or one capable of lateral movement, or the security infrastructure lacks the technological capabilities to detect the attack.

False negatives are serious security threats capable of evading technologies like next-gen firewalls, antivirus software, and EDR platforms looking for “known” attacks, and malware.

False negatives can also occur easily in attack surface management when assets that should be tested are not found in or are incorrectly excluded from the attack surface.

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Improve Attack Surface Visibility While Reducing False Positives

Join Meir Asiskovich, VP of Product at CyCognito, as he demonstrates how your Security team can build a more streamlined and focused attack surface visibility program that eliminates this noise, prioritizing risks based on their business impact, discoverability, and exploitability intelligence.

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Manage Your Attack Surface

CyCognito uniquely reveals unknown and unmanaged assets associated with your organization, including assets in cloud, partner, and subsidiary environments.

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Prioritization

Eliminate alert fatigue and focus on the top 1% most critical issues in your attack surface through intelligent, automated risk prioritization.

CyCognito Report

State of External Exposure Management, 2024 Edition

State of External Exposure Management Report

Critical vulnerabilities often hide in plain sight—especially in your web servers.

The report is a must-read for understanding today’s external risks and how to prioritize them effectively. Download the report to stay ahead of emerging threats and strengthen your security posture for 2025.