Comparison
PuReAI vs Microsoft Defender EASM (2026)
Defender EASM is strong, inexpensive discovery for your own estate inside the Microsoft ecosystem. PuReAI adds supplier risk, actor intelligence and a defensible score on top of discovery.
Last reviewed: 2026-09-01
How the two are positioned
Defender EASM answers what you own and expose. PuReAI answers that plus who is likely to attack it, through which supplier, and how bad the overall position is.
Side by side
| Dimension | PuReAI | Microsoft Defender EASM |
|---|---|---|
| Own attack surface discovery | Domains, subdomains, hosts, ports, certificates and technology fingerprinting. | Continuous discovery of internet-exposed assets, including shadow IT, seeded and refined from known seed assets. |
| Third-party / supplier risk | Supply Chain module scores vendors continuously with per-vendor evidence. | Not marketed as a third-party or supplier risk product; scope is the organisation's own external attack surface. |
| Composite risk score | Published four-segment Company Risk Score for you and each supplier. | Provides an inventory with risk, compliance and security insights per asset rather than a single overall company score. |
| Threat actor intelligence | Ransomware group tracking and MITRE ATT&CK TTPs correlated to your sector and stack. | Attack-surface insights are available; broader threat actor intelligence is delivered through separate Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence products. |
| Natural language investigation | Ask the threat graph in plain language and get answers grounded in your data. | Investigation happens through the Defender/Azure portal and Log Analytics queries. |
| Ecosystem fit | Integrations with Splunk, Sentinel, Jira, ServiceNow, Slack, webhook and REST API. | Deepest inside Azure, Microsoft Sentinel and the broader Microsoft security stack. |
| Deployment | Cloud or sovereign/on-premise, including air-gapped. | Delivered as an Azure cloud service. |
| Discovery method | Passive external OSINT, no credentials or agents required. | Combines seed-based crawling and Microsoft's internet-wide asset graph, agentless for external discovery. |
| Reporting cadence | Continuous scoring with historical trend. | Continuously updated inventory with periodic full re-discovery runs. |
Based on each vendor's publicly documented product information. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
A closer look
Overview
PuReAI
PuReAI is a supplier-and-self risk intelligence platform that produces one comparable score for the customer's own domain and for every supplier in scope, using the same published methodology across both. Its focus extends beyond discovery into evidence, threat actor correlation and regulatory-grade reporting, aimed at teams whose remit includes third-party risk as well as their own perimeter. Because collection is passive and external, no agents or credentials are needed on the customer's or the supplier's infrastructure, and results are available immediately for a new domain rather than after a discovery-and-tuning cycle.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Microsoft Defender External Attack Surface Management (Defender EASM) is Microsoft's product for continuously discovering and mapping an organisation's own internet-facing attack surface, so that security and IT teams can see what an attacker sees, including unmanaged and shadow-IT assets they were not aware of. Microsoft's own site describes it as providing visibility beyond the firewall, discovering unmanaged resources, and feeding vulnerability, risk and compliance insights per asset into the broader Microsoft security ecosystem, particularly Sentinel and other Defender products. It is scoped to the customer's own estate rather than to scoring third-party suppliers.
Deployment options
PuReAI
PuReAI can be deployed as a managed cloud service or entirely on the customer's own infrastructure, with an air-gapped configuration available for organisations that cannot permit external network paths for their risk platform. This applies to both the customer's own domain scoring and to supplier scoring, and does not change the underlying methodology.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Defender EASM is delivered as an Azure cloud service, provisioned and billed through an Azure subscription, and is documented by Microsoft as part of its cloud security portfolio. There is no publicly documented on-premise or air-gapped deployment mode; the product is designed to run as part of the Azure and Microsoft Defender ecosystem.
Scoring transparency
PuReAI
PuReAI's Company Risk Score is built from four published, weighted segments (Compromises 0.4, Issues 0.3, Supply Chain 0.2, Exposure 0.1), producing one comparable number the customer can apply to its own domain and to every supplier in its portfolio. This lets a security team benchmark a supplier against their own organisation using the identical formula.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Defender EASM is not built around a single composite score. Microsoft's documentation describes it as surfacing an inventory of discovered assets along with risk, vulnerability and compliance insights attached to each asset, which teams then triage and prioritise, typically inside the Azure portal or by exporting into Sentinel or Log Analytics for further analysis. There is no published overall organisational score comparable to a ratings-style number.
Data collection
PuReAI
Collection is passive external OSINT: DNS, certificate, banner, code-repository, breach-corpus and document sources, all attributed with the underlying evidence, with no agents or credentials required on any target's infrastructure. This applies equally to the customer's own domain and to any supplier being scored.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Defender EASM discovers assets starting from known seeds (such as domains the organisation confirms it owns) and expands outward using Microsoft's internet-wide asset graph and crawling infrastructure, agentlessly, to surface previously unknown or unmanaged infrastructure. Microsoft describes this discovery as continuous, aimed at keeping the inventory current as the organisation's external footprint changes.
Coverage
PuReAI
PuReAI covers the customer's own domain and any number of third-party suppliers with the same modules and scoring, including a dedicated Supply Chain module for continuously monitoring vendor risk, which is outside Defender EASM's stated scope.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Defender EASM's coverage is scoped to the organisation's own external attack surface, including subsidiaries and infrastructure connected to known seed assets; Microsoft's public materials do not describe it as a third-party or supplier risk scoring product.
Integrations
PuReAI
PuReAI integrates with Splunk, Sentinel, Jira, ServiceNow, Slack, plus webhook and REST API access, so findings can be routed into whichever SIEM or ticketing system a team already uses, independent of cloud provider.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Defender EASM is designed to integrate tightly with the Microsoft security stack, feeding discovered assets and insights into Microsoft Sentinel and Log Analytics, and is most naturally used by organisations already standardised on Azure and Microsoft security tooling.
Pricing model
PuReAI
A free domain report is available to start; paid engagements are scoped by the number of monitored domains and suppliers and by deployment mode, without a fixed public price list.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Defender EASM is billed through Azure consumption-based pricing tied to the number of assets discovered and managed, consistent with other Azure security services, and does not require a separate enterprise sales process to begin a pay-as-you-go trial.
Support
PuReAI
Analyst-reviewed disputes with a fixed five-business-day resolution window are available on every finding, alongside standard account and technical support.
Microsoft Defender EASM
Support for Defender EASM follows standard Microsoft Azure and Defender support plans, with documentation maintained on Microsoft Learn and community support through Microsoft Tech Community.
Which one fits your situation
Choose PuReAI when
- — Third-party and supply chain risk is in scope, not just your own assets.
- — You need a defensible score and regulatory evidence, not only an inventory.
- — You want actor-level context tied to your specific exposure.
Choose Microsoft Defender EASM when
- — You are Microsoft-native and need discovery of your own estate billed through Azure.
- — Your only requirement is inventory feeding Sentinel.
Questions we get asked
Do we need both?
Some teams keep Defender EASM for owned-asset inventory inside Azure and use PuReAI for supplier risk, scoring and threat intelligence. Findings can flow into Sentinel from both.
Does PuReAI need agents?
No. Collection is passive and external - no agents, no authentication, no exploitation.
Does Defender EASM score suppliers?
Microsoft's own documentation scopes Defender EASM to the customer's own external attack surface; it is not described as a third-party or supplier risk scoring product.
Compare on your own domain
Run a free PuReAI domain report and check it against whatever you use today. The scoring methodology is public.