CrowdStrike Named a Strong Performer in Forrester Wave for Unified Vulnerability Management

CrowdStrike is proud to be named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Unified Vulnerability Management Solutions, Q3 2025. We believe this recognition underscores the strength of CrowdStrike’s vision, the pace of our innovation, and the rapid adoption of CrowdStrike Falcon® Exposure Management by customers transforming their vulnerability management, just 24 months after its launch.

The need for unified, intelligent exposure management is critical. In 2024, 52% of exploited vulnerabilities observed by CrowdStrike were to gain initial access, according to the CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report. Adversaries are targeting internet-exposed systems with unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerabilities and moving quickly and quietly to access high-value data, often faster than defenders can respond.

Many traditional vulnerability management approaches are falling short. Their static CVSS scores, scheduled scans, and siloed dashboards make it increasingly difficult for defenders to keep pace. Security teams are overwhelmed with alerts but lack insight into which vulnerabilities are actively exploited or which assets are at highest risk. They have little to no indication of how a threat actor might move laterally through their environment.

This isn’t a volume problem — it’s a risk prioritization problem.

As The Forrester Wave™ explains, Falcon Exposure Management can provide the essential capabilities they need.

CrowdStrike debuts as a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave for Unified Vulnerability Management, Q3 2025, achieving the highest possible score in the Innovation criterion.

Why Falcon Exposure Management Stands Out

In its first-ever evaluation of the Unified Vulnerability Management (UVM) category, Forrester assessed 10 vendors. CrowdStrike received the highest possible score (5.0) in three criteria that we believe define modern exposure management:

Innovation: Our roadmap features modern capabilities including AI risk analysis, authenticated scanning, customized reporting, and conversational risk queries through CrowdStrike Charlotte AI™. 

Exposure Assessment and Prioritization: We think CrowdStrike’s integrated visibility across endpoint, cloud, identity, and workload environments stood out as a foundational strength. We deliver unified visibility across on-premises, cloud, identity, and workload environments, and prioritize alerts with adversary-driven logic. “CrowdStrike excels at exposure assessment and prioritization with integrated views of attack paths across both on-premises and cloud environments,” the Forrester report states.

Partner Ecosystem: Our strong ecosystem and extensibility make it easier for customers to consolidate tools and maximize value from existing investments. In our opinion, CrowdStrike stood out for our integration breadth and extensibility, which make it easier for customers to consolidate tools and maximize platform value. 

“Customers utilize CrowdStrike for endpoint and cloud security and appreciate the simple implementation and rapid proactive insights from existing CrowdStrike investments,” the Forrester report states.

Intermex is a perfect example of how these capabilities come together to protect customer environments. When the company faced an overwhelming backlog of critical vulnerabilities, it turned to Falcon Exposure Management to cut through the noise using ExPRT.AI. The result? A 98% reduction in critical vulnerabilities, including 92% fewer on servers and 86% fewer on workstations, in under a year. Its CISO described this as “massive improvements I was proud to present to the board.”

The Power of the Platform Approach

CrowdStrike’s 5/5 scores in the Innovation and Exposure Assessment and Prioritization criteria were driven by the power of the unified, AI-native CrowdStrike Falcon® cybersecurity platform. Our rapid innovation, real-time adversary intelligence, AI-driven predictive risk scoring with ExPRT.AI, and attack path analysis are all possible because Falcon Exposure Management is built natively into the Falcon platform, leveraging a single agent, single console, and unified data model to deliver real-time insights at scale.

With every module managed from a single console, the Falcon platform delivers AI-driven protection — trained on trillions of daily events and front-line intelligence — across modules, without relying on stitched-together data or disconnected systems. CrowdStrike’s innovations beyond exposure management fuel and strengthen this capability. 

The Forrester report states, “CrowdStrike excels at exposure assessment and prioritization with integrated views of attack paths across both on-premises and cloud environments.” It also notes that “customers appreciated the simple implementation and rapid proactive insights from existing CrowdStrike investments.” Falcon Exposure Management prioritizes vulnerabilities using proprietary intelligence and AI-driven analytics, giving security teams clarity on what matters most. As the Forrester report adds, “CrowdStrike is a significant player in the SecOps market and is actively incorporating its insights from existing offerings in endpoint detection and response (EDR), threat intelligence, and incident response into its proactive security offering, Falcon Exposure Management.”

The path to stronger vulnerability management isn’t about adding another tool. It’s about adopting a unified, real-time view of exposure that evolves with the organization. With that foundation, security teams can act faster, reduce risk more effectively, and stay ahead of adversaries.

A New Era for Exposure Management

The Forrester Wave™: Unified Vulnerability Management Solutions, Q3 2025 notes:

“Many organizations today are looking to do more with less: relying on their preferred endpoint security agents for vulnerability assessments on endpoints, integrating third-party data into traditional network vulnerability scan vendor platforms, and doubling down on security operations (SecOps) platform companies that provide assessments on a variety of asset classes like cloud, applications, or IoT.”

We believe CrowdStrike’s recognition in this Wave validates that shift. In just two years, we’ve transformed from a new entrant to one of the most innovative and impactful players in the space. And it’s only the beginning. We believe the future of exposure management will be:

• AI-native: Deliver automated, explainable risk prioritization in real time
• Unified: Seamlessly connected across endpoint, cloud, identity, and IT systems
• Adversary-aware: Rooted in real-world attacker behavior, not theoretical scoring

As threat actors accelerate and environments grow more complex, the ability to proactively manage exposure continuously, intelligently, and at scale will define the winners in cybersecurity. Falcon Exposure Management is built to lead this next chapter. 

Additional Resources

• Read the full The Forrester Wave™: Unified Vulnerability Management Solutions, Q3 2025.
• Learn more about Falcon Exposure Management by visiting the product page.
• Download our comprehensive Buyer's Guide to Modern Exposure Management.
• Stop Breaches. Start Here. Experience how CrowdStrike's platform approach is transforming exposure management for thousands of organizations worldwide. Contact us today.

Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester's objectivity here.

The Forrester Wave™: Unified Vulnerability Management Solutions, Q3 2025, Forrester Research, Inc., July 2025 evaluated 10 vendors with CrowdStrike positioned as a Strong Performer with the highest scores possible in the Innovation, Partner Ecosystem, and Exposure Assessment and Prioritization criteria