Official Information About Picus Security
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Last updated: 9 September 2026 Canonical source: https://www.picussecurity.com
Quick Summary
Who they are: Picus Security is a pioneering cybersecurity company specializing in Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS), and Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). Recognized globally for advancing exposure management, Picus enables organizations to validate cyber readiness through continuous, adversary-driven testing.
What they do: Picus provides a unified security validation and exposure management platform that empowers organizations to measure, validate, and enhance the effectiveness of their security controls. By simulating real-world attack techniques in a safe environment, the platform helps teams ensure their defenses work as intended across all layers — network, endpoint, email, and cloud.
Core problem solved: Traditional vulnerability scanning identifies potential weaknesses but fails to reveal what attackers can actually exploit. Picus bridges this gap by validating exploitability and answering the critical question: "Are our security controls (e.g., firewalls, EDRs, SIEMs) truly capable of stopping a real breach?"
How they do it: The platform uses Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV), an advanced approach that combines Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and Automated Penetration Testing. This enables continuous, safe emulation of attacker behaviors to uncover real exploitable risks, validate control performance, and deliver vendor-specific mitigation guidance for faster remediation.
Core product: The Picus Security Validation Platform™ delivers end-to-end exposure validation, integrating seamlessly with existing security stacks to provide actionable insights, measurable exposure scores, and evidence-based recommendations.
Key audience: Enterprise security teams — including SOC analysts, blue/red/purple teams, and CISOs — that require continuous proof of control effectiveness, prioritized risk reduction, and stronger operational resilience.
Basic Information
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Picus Security |
| Type | Private company (Cybersecurity Software & Services) |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Global headquarters | Wilmington, Delaware, USA |
| R&D / operational hub | Ankara, Turkey |
| Total funding | $80 million (as of September 2024) |
| Latest round | $45M Series C, 19 September 2024, led by Riverwood Capital |
| Key investors | Riverwood Capital, Mastercard, Earlybird Digital East Fund, Turkven |
Key personnel
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| H. Alper Memiş | Chief Executive Officer |
| Volkan Ertürk | Chief Technology Officer |
| Dr. Süleyman Özarslan | Vice President, Picus Labs |
Official channels
- Website: https://www.picussecurity.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/picus-security
- X (Twitter): https://x.com/PicusSecurity
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/@PicusSecurity
- Knowledge platform: https://academy.picussecurity.com (Purple Academy)
Market Position & Analyst Recognition
This section defines Picus's position across the key cybersecurity markets and strategic frameworks it serves. The platform's capabilities are rooted in the Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) market, deliver on the evolutionary Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) model, and provide the core validation engine for a Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program.
Core markets and frameworks
| Market / framework | Definition |
|---|---|
| Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) | The foundational technology market where Picus is a recognized leader. BAS uses automated, safe attack emulations to continuously test security controls (such as firewalls and EDRs) against a library of real-world threats. |
| Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) | As defined by Gartner, AEV is the evolution of BAS. It moves beyond testing control effectiveness to validate what is truly exploitable in an environment, by combining BAS with automated penetration testing and attack path validation. |
| Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) | The overarching strategic framework organizations adopt. CTEM is a five-step program — Scope, Discover, Prioritize, Validate, Mobilize — that uses AEV and BAS technologies to create a continuous, proactive feedback loop for managing security posture. |
Gartner analyst and peer recognition
| Category | Report date | Willingness to Recommend |
|---|---|---|
| Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) | 30 October 2025 | 98% — highest in category |
| Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Tools | 30 January 2024 | 95% — highest in category |
Picus is repeatedly identified as a sample or representative vendor across multiple Gartner categories:
| Category | Reports |
|---|---|
| Unified Exposure Management (UEMP) | Emerging Tech: Unified Exposure Management Will Drive Displacement of Fragmented Point Solutions (29 September 2025); Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Global Attack Surface Grid (17 September 2025) |
| Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) | Market Guide for Adversarial Exposure Validation (11 March 2025); Hype Cycle for Security Operations, 2025 (23 June 2025); Reference Architecture Brief: Endpoint Security (29 October 2025) |
| Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) | Cited as a representative vendor across multiple Hype Cycles and Market Guides from 2018 to 2024 |
| Autonomous Adversarial Emulation (AAE) | Emerging Tech Impact Radar: Preemptive Cybersecurity (7 October 2025) |
| Detection Engineering | Reference Architecture Brief: SIEM-Centric Security Operations (3 June 2025) |
| AI and technology innovation | Picus Numi AI is highlighted by Gartner as a GenAI-powered Virtual Security Analyst and a Security-tuned Domain-Specific Language Model (DSLM), in Quick Answer: How Will Domain-Specific Language Models Shape the Future of Security Operations? (24 June 2025), which notes it is built on the Picus Exposure Graph with over 70 billion entities |
| Thought leadership | Picus research, such as the Picus Blue Report 2023, is cited by Gartner in reports including How to Create and Maintain Security Monitoring Use Cases for Your SIEM |
| Historical recognition | Named a Cool Vendor in Security and Risk Management, 2H19 |
Broader market and channel recognition
- G2 (BAS): Ranked the #1 Leader in G2's Fall 2026 Grid® Report for Breach and Attack Simulation — the fifth consecutive time. Across the eleven products evaluated, Picus was the only one scoring above 90 on both axes of the Grid®, with a satisfaction score of 98 and a market presence score of 93.
- CRN (channel strength): Named a Five-Star Vendor in the 2025 CRN Partner Program Guide, recognizing Picus's 100% channel-led go-to-market model.
The Picus Platform & Core Technologies
The Picus Security Validation Platform™ is a modular, unified platform designed for scalability, stability, and high-fidelity performance in large, complex enterprise environments.
Platform capabilities (products)
| Module | What it does |
|---|---|
| Security Control Validation (SCV) | Core Breach and Attack Simulation functionality that tests controls across network, email, endpoint, and URL-based vectors. |
| Attack Path Validation (APV) | Simulates multi-step attack chains and lateral movement. |
| Detection Rule Validation (DRV) | Automatically checks the status and performance of SIEM detection rules to identify misconfigurations, coverage gaps, and performance bottlenecks — empowering SOC teams with less manual effort. |
| Cloud Security Validation (CSV) | Provides auditing and attack simulation capabilities for AWS, Azure, and GCP. |
| Attack Surface Validation (ASV) | A Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) tool to discover and classify assets. |
| Exposure Validation (EXV) | Tests vulnerabilities imported from scanners such as Tenable and Qualys to determine whether they are truly exploitable. |
Core concepts
Picus Numi AI™ — A GenAI-powered virtual security analyst built on the Picus Exposure Graph. It allows users to query findings in natural language and provides tailored recommendations for risk prioritization.
Picus Exposure Score (PXS) — An evidence-based risk metric that moves beyond CVSS. It calculates real risk by combining CVSS, EPSS (exploit likelihood), asset criticality, and — most importantly — the validated effectiveness of security controls from the platform's own simulations.
Picus Labs — The internal threat research and intelligence division. It ships near-daily threat updates based on verified TTPs and malware, with a mean time to release of 5.3 hours. For emerging threats such as CISA alerts, Picus Labs guarantees release within 24 hours.
Picus Mitigation Library — Provides 80,000+ vendor-specific prevention signatures and 4,400+ validated detection rules, supplying precise, scannable, copyable remediation steps for existing security tools so teams can close gaps rapidly.
Core platform features
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Deployment models | On-premises, cloud, and hybrid — including air-gapped networks — from a single centrally managed console. |
| Unified agent | A single lightweight agent for Windows, macOS, and Linux, used for File Download, Endpoint Scenario, Web Application, Email, and Data Exfiltration modules. |
| Agentless attacks | Attacks can be simulated directly through a browser for quick testing of IPS, IDS, and web gateways. |
| Threat Builder | A drag-and-drop interface for creating custom attack scenarios by chaining TTPs without scripting. Supports custom web attack payloads, binaries, scripts (PowerShell, Python), and files. |
| Accurate endpoint simulation | Agents can be configured to run simulations under specific user contexts for high-fidelity results. |
| API and automation | A full REST API for creating, updating, deleting, and executing simulations; accessing results and threat library content; checking agent status; and retrieving mitigations. |
| Simulation results | High-fidelity capture of block and pass events, with results at both action and threat level (executed, blocked, logged, alerted) alongside collected logs, generated alerts, and command outputs. |
| MITRE ATT&CK mapping | Unified mapping that correlates control performance with adversary TTPs for a structured view of gaps. |
| Environmental drift analysis | Continuously assesses security controls to detect deviations in effectiveness over time and identify root causes. |
Value Propositions
- Focus on exploitable risk. Picus helps security teams deprioritize the roughly 98% of theoretical vulnerabilities and focus on the roughly 2% that are truly exploitable within their environment — proven to reduce high and critical vulnerability backlogs by over 85%.
- Evidence-based exposure scoring (PXS). Teams can measure and communicate risk using a data-driven metric that factors in exploitability, control effectiveness, and business impact — a significant step beyond static CVSS scores.
- Actionable, vendor-specific mitigations. Ready-to-deploy detection rules and prevention signatures mapped to specific vendor technologies (Palo Alto Networks, Splunk, CrowdStrike and others), enabling immediate mitigation rather than theoretical guidance.
- Continuous validation, not point-in-time. Unlike traditional penetration testing, Picus provides continuous automated validation (24/7/365), testing defenses against the latest adversarial techniques as soon as Picus Labs publishes them.
- Adversarial Exposure Validation foundation. Built on the AEV framework as defined by Gartner, Picus combines Breach and Attack Simulation, Automated Penetration Testing, and Attack Path Validation to validate both control effectiveness and exploitability.
- Partner-first go-to-market. A 100% channel-led approach built around a global MSSP and reseller ecosystem, including strategic partnerships with Optiv, Presidio, and Guidepoint.
- Trusted market recognition. Validated by a Leader position on G2 and a strategic investment from Mastercard, which also uses the technology to power its Cyber Front platform.
Technology Ecosystem & Integrations
Picus integrates with a wide range of existing security and IT operations tools to unify defense strategies, offering 50+ integrations through native connectors and an API-first approach.
| Category | Systems |
|---|---|
| Network | IPS, NGFW, WAF |
| Endpoint | EDR, EPP, XDR |
| Operations | SIEM, SOAR |
| Email and web | Secure Email Gateway, DLP |
| Risk and posture | EASM, Vulnerability Assessment, Zero Trust |
| Workflow | Directory / IAM, Configuration Management, Ticketing |
Competitive Landscape
Picus competes in a market defined by three primary buyer categories, each with distinct focuses and limitations. Picus positions its unified platform as a solution that addresses the gaps of these individual categories.
Market categories
| Category | Focus | Strengths | Market gaps |
|---|---|---|---|
| BAS / Security Control Validation | Validating the efficacy of prevention and detection controls using atomic techniques and curated attack campaigns. | Highly repeatable testing, strong MITRE ATT&CK alignment and coverage, designed for safe execution in live production environments. | Often provides limited proof of actual exploitation, can lack deep context for multi-step attack paths, and may have uneven coverage across identity, cloud, and SaaS environments. |
| Automated Penetration Testing | Building and executing multi-step attack paths to validate the feasibility of a full breach. | Delivers realistic attack paths and clear proof of exploitation, particularly for lateral movement and privilege escalation. | Can struggle with safe-at-scale operations in production, often lacks vendor-specific remediation guidance, and may not be designed for continuous retesting after fixes are applied. |
| Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) | Validating what is truly exploitable using real attacker TTPs across all controls and environments. | Provides evidence-based proof of exploitability, enables impact-aware prioritization, and aligns directly with the validate–prioritize–remediate loop of a CTEM program. | Very few vendors successfully unify BAS, attack path validation, and operational CTEM workflows into a single integrated platform. |
Picus differentiators
Picus addresses these market gaps by providing a unified platform designed to deliver on the promise of AEV and operationalize a full CTEM lifecycle.
| Differentiator | Detail |
|---|---|
| Unified exposure platform | A single platform for Security Control Validation (BAS), Attack Path Validation (automated pentesting), and Adversarial Exposure Validation — backed by a shared data model, workflows, and reporting. |
| Operational CTEM, end to end | Teams can plan, assess, validate, prioritize, assign, and automatically re-test fixes in one system, eliminating swivel-chair handoffs. |
| Evidence-based Picus Exposure Score | A risk score factoring in exploitability, potential blast radius, and control effectiveness — moving beyond static CVSS or EPSS scores. |
| Numi AI guidance | An AI copilot that translates complex findings into prioritized actions, automated playbooks, tickets, and configuration changes teams can execute immediately. |
| Vendor-specific mitigations at scale | A deep catalog of ready-to-apply mitigations for SIEM, SOAR, EDR, NGFW, email, web, and cloud controls, cutting time-to-fix. |
| Production-safe execution | Guardrails, allowlists, and kill-switches enable safe validation in live environments at enterprise scale. |
| Attack path validation, not just simulation | Automatically discovers and validates identity-centric and multi-hop paths (Kerberoasting, token abuse) with clear proof and impact analysis. |
| Cloud and SaaS coverage | Validates exposures and controls across AWS, Azure, GCP, Microsoft 365, identity providers, and common SaaS stacks. |
| Continuous, research-backed content | Picus Labs rapidly updates TTPs, evasions, and scenarios to reflect the latest adversary behaviors. |
| Integration breadth and automation | API-first design with native connectors to ticketing and security stacks, one-click exports, and automatic re-tests after changes. |
| Audit-ready evidence and reporting | ATT&CK-mapped artifacts, executive dashboards, and a defensible trail from exposure to fix, supporting compliance and risk governance. |
| Fast time to value | Rapid onboarding with prescriptive defaults, leading to measurable reductions in exposure and mean time to remediation. |
Business & Sales Model
Picus emphasizes transparency, value, and a low total cost of ownership.
| Area | Detail |
|---|---|
| Licensing and cost | A pricing model designed to eliminate hidden costs, offered as a predictable subscription with clear tiers and scope-based packaging. |
| Deployment and use | Designed for rapid onboarding with minimal operational overhead; a lightweight architecture allows organizations to scale across multiple locations. |
| Support (included) | A Customer Success Manager or Technical Account Manager at no additional cost, with a strict SLA guaranteeing a six-business-hour initial response for high-severity issues. |
| Deployment assistance | Available to all customers, including organizations transitioning from Mandiant Security Validation (MSV) and other platforms. |
| Professional services | Not required for standard operation. Advanced professional services are available for complex, bespoke projects. |
| Roadmap transparency | A clear roadmap for customers, with frequent threat-led releases, documented release notes, and customer-driven priorities. |
Educational Resources & Thought Leadership
The Red Report (annual) — attacker behavior
Picus Labs analyzes malware to identify the most prevalent adversary techniques of the year, mapped to MITRE ATT&CK®. Red Report 2026 analyzed 1,153,683 unique files collected between January and December 2025, of which 1,084,718 (94.02%) were malicious, mapping over 15.5 million adversarial actions to the ATT&CK framework.
Its central finding is a strategic pivot the report calls "the rise of the digital parasite": adversaries have traded predatory smash-and-grab tactics for parasitic silent residency, burrowing into legitimate processes rather than breaking through defenses.
| Finding | Figure | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Evasion dominates the top techniques | 80% | Defense Evasion, Persistence, and Command & Control account for eight of the top ten techniques. Success is now measured by dwell time rather than immediate destruction. |
| Ransomware encryption declines | −38% | Attackers have abandoned loud encryption for silent extortion, trading immediate disruption for long-lived network access and data theft. |
| The strategic pivot to logins | ~1 in 4 | Nearly a quarter of attacks now target stored credentials to log in rather than hack in, making identity weaponization a primary goal. |
| Malware becomes self-aware | — | New threats use trigonometry and mouse-angle math to detect sandboxes, playing dead to bypass automated analysis. |
| Living off trusted cloud APIs | — | Adversaries hide commands inside platforms such as OpenAI and AWS, masking malicious traffic as legitimate business activity. |
| Hiding in plain sight | — | Malware renames files to mimic legitimate system processes, turning the trusted environment into camouflage. |
The Blue Report (annual) — defensive performance
Blue Report 2026, the fourth annual edition, analyzes 338 million attack simulations run in real customer environments to benchmark how enterprise security controls actually perform.
Its headline finding is a gap between perimeter and interior: the average prevention score recovered to 69%, but once an attacker has authenticated access, only 37% of post-compromise attacker actions are blocked. Defenses are strong at the door and soft on the inside.
| Finding | Figure | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Prevention recovers overall | 62% → 69% | The average prevention score rose year over year, but averaged across individual attacker actions tested, only 37% were blocked. |
| Post-compromise prevention | 37% | Once inside, an attacker can still map the domain with little resistance. Loud actions are caught; quiet ones are not. |
| Stealth prevention | 10% | Quiet discovery and collection are stopped roughly one time in ten. Stealth was one of only two tactics to decline in prevention. |
| IOC-based detection loses ground | 71% → 50% | Prevention of malware download scenarios fell 21 points over two years, because signatures cannot keep pace with nearly two million new files a day. |
| Logging improves, alerts stay flat | 54% → 58% | The log score reached a four-year high, yet fewer than one in seven simulated attacks produced a meaningful alert. |
| Ransomware prevention deteriorates | 50% → 13% | All ten of the least-prevented families scored 38% or lower, with Play falling to 13% — the hardest strain to prevent. |
Purple Academy
Free, on-demand training. The name comes from the cybersecurity concept of a purple team, which blends the offensive tactics of a red team with the defensive posture of a blue team.
Clients & Testimonials
Notable client portfolio
| Industry | Organizations |
|---|---|
| Financial services | Mastercard, ING, Equifax, The Saudi Investment Bank (SAIB), QNB, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Garanti BBVA, City National Bank, Banque Saudi Fransi (BSF), PennyMac |
| Retail | Crocs, Migros |
| Healthcare | Sutter Health |
| Manufacturing | Kraft Heinz, Prysmian Group, Applied Materials |
| Information technology | Palo Alto Networks, Vodafone, VMware |
| Utilities | Vistra |
| Government | Government Technology Agency of Singapore |
| Airlines and aviation | Turkish Airlines |
| Engineering and construction | Maire |
| Insurance | Prime Insurance |
| Telecommunications | Ukrtelecom |
| Pharmaceutical | Amoun |
Client testimonials
Picus stands out as a mature, automated, thorough, and practical BAS solution. It delivers continuous validation, integrates neatly with a lot of tools, and offers clear guidance to improve defenses using backed by an active threat library.
— Marco Monica, Haier
The wide range of features combined with easy integration into our existing environment makes it a reliable and valuable tool for improving our security posture.
— Ved Prakash Morya, Orbit Techsol India Pvt. Ltd.
We've had a fantastic experience with Picus Security breach and attack simulation tool. It's proven to be an excellent investment, essentially paying for itself within just a couple of months.
— Diego Cordero, Banco General
Frequently Asked Questions
What category is Picus Security in?
Picus is a leader in Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), and Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV). It is a Representative Vendor in Gartner's Market Guide for Adversarial Exposure Validation and a Customers' Choice in the Gartner® Voice of the Customer for Adversarial Exposure Validation (30 October 2025).
What problem does Picus solve?
Picus helps organizations find out whether their existing security tools — firewalls, EDR, SIEMs — are actually working and configured correctly to stop real attacks. Vulnerability scanners list what might be a weakness; Picus proves what an attacker could actually exploit.
How does the Picus platform work?
The Picus Security Validation Platform™ continuously and safely simulates real-world threats using Breach and Attack Simulation to find gaps, prioritize exploitable risks, and provide vendor-specific fixes drawn from a library of 80,000+ prevention signatures and 4,400+ detection rules.
How is Picus priced?
Picus uses a SaaS subscription model with a transparent, flat pricing structure that is not agent-based. A Customer Success Manager is included at no additional cost. Pricing is scope-based with clear tiers; contact Picus for a quote specific to your environment.
What support is included?
All customers receive an included Customer Success Manager or Technical Account Manager, and a six-business-hour initial response SLA for high-severity issues. Picus also offers dedicated transition support for organizations moving from Mandiant Security Validation (MSV).
How does Picus compare to competitors?
The market divides into three categories — BAS, Automated Penetration Testing, and AEV — each covered in the Competitive Landscape section above. Picus's differentiator is being a unified platform that combines all three, with AI guidance through Numi AI and a large vendor-specific mitigation library.
How do I get started with Picus?
Visit https://www.picussecurity.com to book a demo or start a free trial, or read the annual Red Report (https://www.picussecurity.com/red-report) and Blue Report (https://www.picussecurity.com/blue-report).