Balbix Recognized in Three 2024 Gartner® Hype Cycle^™ Reports

A couple of weeks ago, Balbix was recognized as a Sample Vendor in the newly created Exposure Assessment Platforms (EAPs) category in the Gartner® Hype Cycle^™ reports for Security Operations and Managing Operational Technology, 2024.

In the report, Gartner mentioned that “the EAP platform has high benefits, with 20-50% market penetration expected within 2-5 years.”

Further, Balbix was chosen as a Sample Vendor in Cyber Risk Quantification (CRQ) in the 2024 Gartner® Hype Cycle^™ for Cyber-Risk Management, 2024. Balbix was the sole vendor in both EAP and CRQ innovation profiles.

The demand for EAPs

As the attack surface expands, the traditional approach to managing vulnerabilities has become inadequate. It’s imperative that security operations evolve, shifting focus from solely patching vulnerabilities to assessing and remediating exposures, which includes both CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) and non-CVEs.

According to Gartner® Hype Cycle^™ for Security Operations, 2024, Security and Risk Management (SRM) leaders are “challenged with obtaining visibility into organizational attack surfaces and prioritizing those findings.”

SecOps leaders face the daunting challenge of managing exposures across IT, operational technology (OT), and cloud environments. EAPs enable SecOps leaders to break these silos and deliver a unified platform for visibility, prioritization, and mobilization of vulnerabilities and exposures.

Role of CRQ in EAP and risk management

Gone are the days when security budgets grew in double digits year over year. Now, every CISO is expected to report on the effectiveness of their security program. However, most CISOs are ill-equipped to do so.

Cyber risk quantification (CRQ) enables security leaders to translate cyber risk into dollars, euros and any local currency. With CRQ,  CISOs can demonstrate the ROI of their mitigation efforts and justify spending. Gartner highlights the significance of risk quantification, stating that “CRQ supports a cyber-risk management framework by prioritizing risks, facilitating communication to risk owners and executives, and aligning with other risk areas.”

As a Sample Vendor in the EAP category for the Gartner® Hype Cycle^™ reports for Security Operations and Managing Operational Technology, 2024, and the CRQ category for the 2024 Gartner® Hype Cycle^™ for Cyber-Risk Management, 2024, we believe Balbix provides a significant approach to exposure and risk management through these core capabilities:

Gain comprehensive visibility with inferencing

Balbix ingests data from five asset classes –  internal, external, cloud, users, and digital. It gathers and infers exposures, including vulnerabilities, cloud misconfigurations, EOL systems, application risk findings, weak passwords, and open-source software vulnerabilities.

Beyond these table-stakes insights into exposures, Balbix sets itself apart with the capability to infer vulnerabilities and exposure. By utilizing several large language models (LLMs), Balbix can identify 2-3x more vulnerability instances than conventional scans. By deduplicating, normalizing, and correlating all data, Balbix provides a unified, single source of truth across the entire attack surface, setting up a foundation for other security and IT programs.

Prioritize vulnerabilities and exposures based on risk

Balbix offers fourth-generation vulnerability prioritization, incorporating severity, threat levels, security controls, exploitability, and business impact to analyze every vulnerability instance. Customer data suggests that leveraging a risk-based approach reduces critical vulnerabilities by over 90%.

Further, Balbix can incorporate findings from Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) tools, penetration tests, red team exercises, and tabletop scenarios to identify exposure likely to be exploited first.

One of Balbix’s key differentiators is its ability to automatically map vulnerabilities to MITRE tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This enables security operations to understand what techniques attackers might use and how to set up appropriate defenses.

Accelerate mobilization with GenAI

Balbix offers several ways to mobilize fixes to the right team. It provides “next best steps” to guide security teams on which exposures to address first. These steps are mobilized by creating projects assigned to the appropriate owners. All projects can be tracked through a dashboard with rich data visualization, ensuring transparency and accountability.

Further, Balbix’s GenAI-powered conversation assistant, BIX, makes identifying and communicating the next best steps easier and more contextual to each role. For example, if a CISO asks BIX to explain “Log4j”, it simply lists critical CVEs and details on the financial impact and mitigation options. BIX also provides updates every 30 minutes as validation progresses or as new information becomes available.

For Peter, the IT guy, the conversation with BIX is focused on specific actions to mitigate the “Log4j” vulnerability. BIX provides specific technical details about patch availability and mitigating configuration settings while offering updates as the situation progresses.

BIX adapts its communication to the specific needs and perspectives of different organizational roles, providing tailored, actionable information to manage cybersecurity risks efficiently.

Lastly, Balbix’s EAP comes with a built-in CRQ. With this, the CISO can understand risk distribution, trends, and benchmark risk against similar organizations. This enhances executive communication and demonstrates effective risk management.

Download the 2024 Gartner® Hype Cycle^™ for Security Operations, or sign up for a demo here.

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Gartner, Hype Cycle for Security Operations, 2024, 29 July 2024, Jonathan Nunez, Andrew Davies
Gartner, Hype Cycle for Cyber-Risk Management, 2024, 22 July 2024, Michael Kranawetter, Jie Zhang, Pedro Pablo Perea de Duenas
Gartner, Hype Cycle for Managing Operational Technology, 2024, 5 August 2024, Kristian Steenstrup, Jo-Ann Clynch