The Security Tools Gap
Security tool vendors promise comprehensive protection and vulnerability detection. Yet, independent evaluations tells a different story — one of overstated detection rates, hidden false positives, and underestimated implementation complexity.
This white paper presents a critical analysis of the gap between vendor marketing claims and real-world tool performance, drawing on fidings from over over a dozen independent evaluations of security tools — primarily academic, all external to the vendor ecosystem.
We examine five critical areas where research directly contradicts common vendor claims:
- Benchmark manipulation and artificial testing environments
- Actual detection rates for static analysis tools
- False positive rates and their operational impact
- Coverage limitations in black-box fuzzing approaches
- Integration challenges in a continuous testing environment
This analysis provides security leaders with objective evidence to evaluate vendor claims and shape better-informed security testing strategies.
From the 2018 NIST SATE report:
“Some toolmakers shared concerns about publicly releasing the detailed analysis of their reports. We decided to accommodate their unease and keep the data confidential.”
That line says more than all of the data combined.