The CTEM Divide: New Research Reveals a Massive Security Performance Gap

A 2026 market intelligence study has uncovered a significant performance rift in the enterprise sector, revealing that organizations adopting Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) achieve 50% better visibility into their attack surfaces compared to those relying on traditional methods.

The report, which surveyed 128 senior security decision-makers across finance, healthcare, and retail, highlights that while 87% of leaders recognize CTEM's importance, only 16% have successfully implemented the framework. This small group of early adopters is reportedly pulling away from the competition, demonstrating a 23-point lead in solution adoption and vastly superior threat awareness. The research emphasizes that as organizations grow beyond 100 domains, manual tracking and snapshot security models inevitably fail, leading to a "visibility gap" where dark assets become prime targets for attackers.

The data suggests that complexity acts as a direct risk multiplier; attack rates rise linearly until a company crosses the 100-domain threshold, at which point the lack of continuous oversight leads to an exponential increase in vulnerability. This shift from reactive patching to proactive validation is becoming a critical differentiator for the 66% of surveyed organizations that employ over 5,000 people. With average breach costs now climbing to $4.44M and the implementation of stricter PCI DSS 4.0.1 monitoring requirements, the study suggests that CTEM is no longer just a technical preference but a boardroom necessity. Security leaders are increasingly using these metrics to overcome organizational inertia and secure the budget needed to close the gap between conceptual awareness and operational reality before their traditional controls stop scaling entirely.