Filigran Survey Finds Gaps in Cyber Exposure Prioritization and Validation

Article Details

Publisher

Filigran

Scope

Global survey of enterprise exposure management, threat intelligence, prioritization, validation, automation, and CTEM adoption, conducted in February and March 2026.

Sample Size

550 security decision-makers and professionals at organizations with at least 1,000 employees; respondents were required to understand their organization's exposure management processes.

Key Statistics

• 84% of respondents agreed that attacks their organizations face often exploit vulnerabilities that are already known but not prioritized.
• 97% reported difficulties determining whether security exposures are actually exploitable.
• 38% reported using threat intelligence within a continuous, fully automated validation process.
• 41% reported a fully consolidated view of their organization's cyber risk exposure.
• Respondents estimated that security teams spend approximately 42% of their time investigating risks that later prove low priority or not exploitable, equivalent to about 17 hours per analyst on a standard 40-hour working week.

Recommendations

• Connect internal asset and configuration telemetry with external threat intelligence to establish a contextualized, consolidated view of exposure.
• Define Priority Intelligence Requirements to align prioritization with relevant threats, business context, and exposure data.
• Replace reliance on periodic assessments with continuous, intelligence-led validation using real-world attack emulation to assess exploitability and control effectiveness.
• Integrate security tools and workflows and automate exposure assessment, validation, prioritization, and coordinated remediation.
• Align security teams around shared priorities and connect validated technical exposure to business impact and risk quantification.