In this article:Strengths and challenges: Tenable One stands out for its broad asset coverage, AI-driven analytics, and ServiceNow and Jira integrations. But it needs to educate the market about its capabilities.A top leader: IDC ranks Tenable first among vendors in both capabilities and strategies, citing the Tenable One platform as ideal for organizations seeking a holistic, actionable view of exposure.Why exposure management matters: Traditional vulnerability management is evolving into unified exposure management, which requires visibility, prioritization, and automated remediation as well as detection.
Tenable has come in tops in the 2025 International Data Corporation (IDC) MarketScape Worldwide Exposure Management Vendor Assessment report, edging out 19 other companies, including several well-known fellow "Leaders," in both the "Capabilities" and "Strategies" aspects. It also had the largest market share.According to IDC, the Capabilities aspect "reflects the vendor's current capabilities and menu of services and how well aligned the vendor is to customer needs." The Strategies aspect is forward-looking and "indicates how well the vendor's future strategy aligns with what customers will require in three to five years."Report author Michelle Abraham said Tenable's flagship exposure-management platform, Tenable One, was "particularly well-suited for enterprises aiming to consolidate siloed risk data integrating both Tenable-native and third-party data sources for a holistic, actionable risk posture."For more information:
Abraham stressed the importance of the exposure-management category, noting that "traditional vulnerability management is slowly evolving to more holistic exposure management within security organizations."Proactive organizations, she added, can now find solutions that "help them evaluate their entire attack surface holistically, illuminate the exposures in their environment, prioritize their risks, and integrate with remediation workflows to close the gaps."She cited the 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report's figures that exploitation of vulnerabilities was the second most-used attack vector, just behind credential abuse, yet pointed out that many organizations are still using "multiple security posture management tools, one for each attack surface."That's a mistake, Abraham explained, as "each exposure does not exist in a vacuum." Exposure-management platforms like Tenable One break down the walls between the silos and "investigate solutions that unify exposures" and reveal potential attack paths.However, she added, exposure-management solutions can't forget their parentage and "still need to ensure the basics of vulnerability management."According to a March 2025 IDC survey of companies using exposure management, prioritizing vulnerabilities was seen as the most important feature of an exposure-management platform. Next were "integration of real-time threat intelligence" and attack-path analysis.Yet despite the widespread adoption of exposure management, more than half (53%) of respondents in the March IDC survey said they still used CVSS scores and vulnerability exploit lists to prioritize vulnerabilities, instead of the more modern "prioritization algorithms that take into account exploitability of the vulnerability and asset context within their own environment, among other factors."Properly managing exposures isn't just about implementing new technologies, the report notes. It's also about "changing people and processes."Because of this, "vendors need to help customers mature their vulnerability and exposure management programs" and make sure that customers understand that it's not only about prioritization and visibility, but also remediation — and verification of those remediations.The IDC report lists several features that customers should expect from exposure-management platforms, including:
"Out of the box" connectors to data sources beyond vulnerability scanners, including third-party programs
Risk visibility across the entire potential attack surface
The ability to customize prioritization of discovered exposures
An automated remediation workflow (Tenable has partnered with Adaptiva to make this possible in Tenable One)
Simple, predictable pricing
Customer support that helps clients implement and fully utilize exposure-management solutions
A substantial number of channel and MSSP partners
What makes Tenable stand out
The IDC report says that the cloud-based Tenable One platform "natively supports IT, cloud, OT/IoT, identity, and applications and offers seamless integrations with ITSM tools such as ServiceNow, Jira, and Azure DevOps." It also likes Tenable One's AI assistant, which "answers natural language queries about the findings in the customer environment."The report cites three recent acquisitions and partnerships that help Tenable complete the list of features essential for exposure management:
The purchase of Vulcan Cyber, which lets Tenable One "connect to more than 50 third-party tools," with more to come
The acquisition of Apex Security, "which helps customers enforce policy and governance for AI applications used and built by the organization," building on capabilities of Tenable's home-grown AI Aware feature
The partnership with Adaptiva, an endpoint patch and configuration manager, which lets Tenable One deliver automated remediation
The report describes the Tenable "asset-based licensing model" as offering "flexible entitlement allocation across asset types, supporting dynamic environments and evolving security needs."Tenable One's strengths, according to the IDC report, are what you'd want from an exposure-management platform:
It gathers data "from a wide range of source types," "supports large-scale, complex environments" and lets clients "tailor the platform to their unique technology stacks without heavy reliance on additional point solutions."
It "leverages a large repository of exposure data."
And it "invests heavily in AI-driven analytics, including generative AI for remediation guidance, attack path generation, and ownership detection."
Meanwhile, the challenges facing Tenable in the exposure-management space have to do with marketing and pricing, not with Tenable One's abilities:
The company's "vulnerability management heritage ... can overshadow its broader exposure-management capabilities." The company needs "ongoing market education and messaging" to let potential buyers recognize "the platform's expanded scope, especially in cloud, identity, and application security."
Tenable's pricing can be confusing, because "The asset-based licensing model ... introduces complexity in mapping entitlements across diverse asset types," such as cloud, identity, web apps and operational technologies. As a result, "customers may require guidance to optimize license allocation and understand the cost implications for multi-environment deployments."
The report concludes that Tenable would be best for exposure-management clients who are "seeking a unified exposure management platform that delivers broad asset coverage across IT, cloud, OT/IoT, identity, and application environments."Tenable One is "particularly well suited for enterprises aiming to consolidate siloed risk data integrating both Tenable-native and third-party data sources for a holistic, actionable risk posture," it adds.Please visit our exposure management topic page.
Paul Wagenseil is a custom content strategist for CyberRisk Alliance, leading creation of content developed from CRA research and aligned to the most critical topics of interest for the cybersecurity community. He previously held editor roles focused on the security market at Tom’s Guide, Laptop Magazine, TechNewsDaily.com and SecurityNewsDaily.com.
