PlexTrac Named in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Exposure Assessment Platforms

Today I’m excited to share that PlexTrac has been named as a Niche Player in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Exposure Assessment Platforms (EAP). I couldn’t be prouder of our team for this recognition. I wanted to share why this is important for PlexTrac and our customers, as well as why we believe this aligns to our vision within the proactive security space and the security industry at large.

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What is an Exposure Assessment Platform (EAP)?

Let’s start by explaining what the EAP category is. The evolution and consolidation of technology capabilities in recent years have made it challenging to classify products within traditional categories.

EAP is a recent product category defined by Gartner that helps organizations support Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) programs. EAP focuses on the activities related to identifying vulnerabilities, aggregating them across various sources, prioritizing them effectively, and facilitating the remediation lifecycle.

What Does Being Named a Niche Player in the Magic Quadrant Mean?

We feel PlexTrac’s recognition as a Niche Player validates our trajectory in meeting the market’s growing need for a platform that unifies the vulnerability lifecycle from discovery to fix. We believe our inclusion alongside larger, long-established vendors highlights the differentiated value we bring from our penetration testing roots–delivering a platform purpose-built to execute and operationalize manual assessments.

For small and midsized enterprises and MSSPs implementing CTEM programs, PlexTrac offers a streamlined path forward without the burden of lengthy deployments or complex implementations. The platform solves immediate needs while delivering the flexibility and scalability required for security programs to grow and mature.

PlexTrac’s Founding Principal 1: The Importance of Penetration Testing

Ever since the founding of PlexTrac it has been our mission to keep security teams focused on finding and fixing the most important issues within their environment. Based on my background as a penetration tester and security practitioner for more than 20 years, I have always felt that penetration testing is some of the best money spent to aid in this mission. 

Penetration testing identifies the truly exploitable conditions within an organization that can lead to a breach. Avoiding breaches is the primary goal of any security program; thus, penetration testing is a great way to aid in identifying those conditions under which a breach can occur. 

Additionally, penetration testing teams themselves are held with high regard amongst stakeholders like CISOs and executives, because they are the ones who are able to emulate realistic attacks and bypass existing security investments and controls. Hence these leaders lend their ears to the penetration testers as to how to prevent their attacks from being successful in the future.

PlexTrac’s Founding Principal 2: Overcoming Tracking and Remediation Challenges
PlexTrac was founded on the principle that while the identification of exploitable vulnerabilities is critically important, someone still needs to get the work done related to remediation or mitigation. Thus, the tracking and remediation portions of the vulnerability lifecycle are also crucial to avoid breaches. 

Every team must determine what the process is to fix issues that are reported. This sounds trivial, but my twenty years of experience in this field have proven that it is not. 

There are imminent questions teams must answer with the tracking and remediation of vulnerabilities:

What do we prioritize first?
Who is responsible for fixing these issues?
Are we making progress in fixing these issues? If not, how do we escalate?
Have we validated that the issues have been resolved, and can we detect recurrence?

Delaying these answers or answering incorrectly leaves an organization exposed or wastes precious resources.

PlexTrac’s Founding Principal 3: Unifying Data from Multiple Sources

PlexTrac was founded on the notion that penetration testing should be a continuous exercise, but the reality is that it’s not always possible for organizations. However, there are a myriad of other findings being reported from other sources, such as risk assessments, vulnerability scans, code reviews, etc. 

All of this data is important and can help identify key issues that must be addressed in the vein of avoiding a breach. Hence, from very early on, we’ve supported the ability to consolidate vulnerabilities across these multiple sources to aid in the challenges teams have around aggregation, visibility, and consistent collaboration.

Why the Gartner EAP Recognition Matters to PlexTrac

Based on the previous definition of EAP, you can now see why we’re excited about the category and being named within the quadrant. We feel PlexTrac’s mission is continuing to be recognized. 

We will always hold to the premise that penetration testing is one of the most important activities for a security program to conduct. We will never steer away from helping penetration testers do their jobs better and more efficiently. 

We will continue to emphasize the much-needed collaboration between all team members throughout the vulnerability lifecycle. And we will hold strong to the notion that penetration testing data is the best data to inform the prioritization and impact of all the other sources of vulnerabilities. 

Our Ongoing Commitment to Security Teams

We will continue to focus on automation, collaboration, insights, proactive validation, and consistency of reporting throughout all the phases of the CTEM lifecycle. We believe penetration testing is the tip of the spear for all of these activities. We’re excited to be able to continue to help all teams stay focused on the right priorities and be a force multiplier in their security journey.

Start with us, partner with us, grow through us.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from PlexTrac.

Gartner, Inc. Magic Quadrant for Exposure Assessment Platforms. Mitchell Schneider, Dhivya Poole, Jonathan Nunez. 10 November 2025.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Dan DeCloss PlexTrac Founder/CTO Dan has over 15 years of experience in cybersecurity. Dan started his career in the Department of Defense and then moved on to consulting where he worked for various companies. Prior to PlexTrac, Dan was the Director of Cybersecurity for Scentsy where he and his team built the security program out of its infancy into a best-in-class program. Dan has a master’s degree in Computer Science from the Naval Postgraduate School with an emphasis in Information Security. Additionally, Dan holds the OSCP and CISSP certifications.