CyCognito vs
CrowdStrike Falcon Surface

CyCognito doesn’t rely on what you know to find what you don’t.

• CyCognito requires zero-input, zero-seeds, zero configuration, and zero onboarding
• CyCognito uses OSINT-based reconnaissance techniques to attribute and contextualize the entire attack surface and identify unknown unknowns

Falcon Surface cannot keep up with your dynamic attack surface.

• Falcon Surface passive and active discovery methods require customer-supplied seed data and fail to identify the unknown-unknown assets that create the bulk of exposures
• Falcon Surface requires manual tagging and curating to fully contextualize assets

CyCognito starts by mapping your organization and continuously updates it as your business changes.

• CyCognito uses natural language processing, machine learning, and a graph data model to automatically map the organization, and identify subsidiaries
• CyCognito goes beyond owned environments, covering web applications, data centers, SaaS, IaaS, partners, brands, acquired companies, joint ventures, and cloud environments

Falcon Surface limited discovery misses unknown assets and key asset types.

• Falcon Surface requires customer input to identify and map subsidiaries
• Falcon Surface’s discovery process is solely based on domain addresses, leaving critical assets like web applications, APIs, and cloud instances in the dark

CyCognito actively and non-intrusively tests for 10,000s of CVEs with more than 90,000 tests.

• CyCognito’s automated, unauthenticated security tests span 35+ categories, including DAST, WebApp OWASP Top 10, weak credentials, exploitable vulnerabilities, and data exposure
• CyCognito’s testing engines cover 100% of your exposed attack surface on customizable cadences, even for attack surfaces that contain millions of assets and tens of thousands of web applications
• CyCognito tests your entire exposed attack surface – no additional products or integrations required

Falcon Surface makes security teams choose between limited passive testing or disruptive agent-based testing.

• Falcon Surface offers no active agent-less testing and focuses primarily on noisy passive scanning, leaving most of your attack surface in the dark and untested
• Falcon Surface misses threat vectors that can only be evaluated with active tests, like web applications (using DAST)
• Falcon Surface’s integrations with VM solutions require heavy configuration and management and cannot fully actively test the exposed attack surface

CyCognito’s single source of truth scales your red team and makes your pen-testing budget go further.

• CyCognito’s suite of 90,000+ unauthenticated automated remote checks reduces repetitive work
• CyCognito supplies context and attribution for all external assets, making pen test information easier to operationalize
• CyCognito provides the coverage, accuracy and frequency required to understand gaps in security posture

Falcon Surface leaves red teams wasting time on asset discovery and basic tests.

• Falcon Surface’s reliance on passive testing and vulnerability management integrations misses real risks and leads to false positives
• Falcon Surface fails to provide crucial asset context and attribution information
• Falcon Surface doesn’t discover unknown unknowns, leaving the riskiest assets in the dark and untested

CyCognito’s prioritization considers asset attractiveness to attackers, business context, targeted threat intelligence, and results from 90,000+ tests.

• CyCognito’s next-gen prioritization algorithms identify less than 0.01% of issues as critical, focusing your teams on the top risks to your attack surface
• CyCognito prioritizes every issue alongside verifiable evidence of exploitability, enabling a >60% reduction in MTTR, often days instead of weeks
• CyCognito’s comprehensive asset discovery ensures every potential risk is assessed and prioritized

Falcon Surface misses key context, assets, and issues, leading to ineffective prioritization.

• Falcon Surface lacks the active testing results needed to identify truly exploitable risks
• Falcon Surface relies primarily on passive scanning and fails to account for factors like exploitability and asset attractiveness, slowing MTTR
• Falcon Surface’s inadequate asset discovery means many assets are missed and aren’t prioritized

CyCognito works directly with leading security solutions like Splunk, ServiceNow, and Armis.

• CyCognito users can automatically generate reports for a variety of audiences, including executive reports tailored for the C-suite
• CyCognito’s Remediation Validation feature automatically checks if a remediation attempt has been successful
• CyCognito’s Remediation Planner tool builds remediation plans to improve the security posture of organizations and their subsidiaries

Falcon Surface’s lack of connectors and remediation tools slows MTTR.

• Falcon Surface’s reporting capabilities are limited and users need to manually export and format data*
• Falcon Surface alone cannot validate remediation success, requiring manual followup
• Falcon Surface lacks the ability to build a remediation plan to guide systematic improvements