As organizations strengthen endpoint and cloud security, attackers are shifting their focus to often-overlooked network infrastructure like routers, switches, and firewalls. Legacy vulnerability management (VM) solutions struggle to keep pace, relying on slow, periodic scans that fail to provide real-time visibility into emerging threats.
To close this critical security gap, CrowdStrike is expanding the power of CrowdStrike Falcon® Exposure Management with Network Vulnerability Assessment — bringing its continuous visibility, AI-driven prioritization, and automated remediation to unmanaged network assets. By leveraging existing CrowdStrike Falcon® sensor deployments, security teams can now seamlessly extend Falcon Exposure Management’s risk-based approach to network infrastructure, ensuring no blind spots across endpoints, cloud, and network environments.
The Need for a Modern Approach to Network Vulnerability Assessment
Cybercriminals are constantly adapting, seeking new ways to infiltrate enterprise environments by exploiting security gaps that traditional defenses overlook, often moving from initial access to high-value assets in just 48 minutes on average — and CrowdStrike observed that 52% of vulnerabilities disclosed in 2024 were related to initial access, according to the CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report.
At the same time, attackers are increasingly targeting network devices — such as routers, switches, and firewalls — that often run outdated firmware, have misconfigurations, or contain unpatched vulnerabilities. Sophisticated adversaries have been observed exploiting unsecured network devices to infiltrate organizations — for example, OPERATOR PANDA has chained two network OS vulnerabilities to target U.S. telecoms and professional services companies. Once compromised, these devices provide adversaries with a foothold to move laterally, exfiltrate data, and bypass traditional security defenses. Network Vulnerability Assessment helps address this threat by evaluating the security posture of the entire network, including unmanaged devices that endpoint security tools cannot protect.
Traditional network vulnerability assessment solutions generate outdated risk data and excessive alerts based on static CVSS scoring. These inefficiencies overwhelm security teams, delaying remediation while attackers exploit weaknesses. Additionally, legacy scanning tools require complex infrastructure, causing network congestion and returning stale results. In today’s fast-evolving threat landscape, organizations need a modern, risk-based approach to network security — one that provides continuous visibility, prioritizes vulnerabilities based on business impact, and enables rapid remediation to outpace adversaries.
CrowdStrike Falcon Exposure Management Stops Breaches
Falcon Exposure Management is an AI-powered solution that helps security teams stop breaches by identifying and prioritizing business-critical risks across endpoints, networks, and cloud assets. The introduction of Network Vulnerability Assessment enhances vulnerability management with continuous asset discovery and AI-driven risk prioritization, ensuring organizations can continuously monitor for new devices on the network and reduce the risk of unmanaged assets being exploited.
Powered by ExPRT.AI, CrowdStrike’s predictive risk prioritization AI engine, Network Vulnerability Assessment scans network devices to identify and assess vulnerabilities, similar to how endpoint security operates. It collects telemetry on network assets, which is then processed by ExPRT.AI, leveraging world-class threat intelligence feeds, asset criticality, and other data to generate risk ratings. With dynamic scan routing and customizable templates, Network Vulnerability Assessment optimizes scanning based on network proximity, asset value, and risk level. Integrated with CrowdStrike Falcon® Fusion SOAR, it also enables automated remediation workflows, allowing security teams to respond in real time and stay ahead of evolving threats.