CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Bishop Fox vs UnderDefense

Bishop Fox sells offensive security services, including penetration testing and continuous security testing. UnderDefense sells UnderDefense MAXI, a security and compliance automation platform, and an MDR service in which security experts monitor, detect and respond to incidents. CISO Tribune files both under Penetration testing and red team services. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Bishop Fox
  • UnderDefense
Bishop Fox vs UnderDefense: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
Bishop FoxBishop Fox sells offensive security services, including penetration testing and continuous security testing.bishopfox.comUnderDefenseUnderDefense sells UnderDefense MAXI, a security and compliance automation platform, and an MDR service in which security experts monitor, detect and respond to incidents.underdefense.com
What it sells
  • Cosmos[3][7][13][14]Bishop Fox's cloud-native technology platform and the foundation of its offensive security services.
  • Penetration Testing Services[4]Bishop Fox penetration testing across applications, networks, products, cloud, and AI systems.
  • Application Penetration Testing[3][9][14]Testing of web, mobile, and other applications, including an AI-powered portfolio option.
  • External Penetration Testing[10]Perimeter testing that emulates targeted adversaries.
  • Hardware Penetration Testing[4][11]Testing of connected devices and their ecosystems.
  • Continuous Security Testing[5][8]Managed continuous testing that Bishop Fox ties to Continuous Threat Exposure Management programs.
  • AIMap[3]Open-source tool built by Bishop Fox for testing exposed AI endpoints.
  • UnderDefense MAXI[1][2][3][5][6]A security and compliance automation platform. UnderDefense MAXI integrates with SIEMs, firewalls and endpoint protection solutions.
  • UnderDefense Agentic AI SOC[4]AI agents investigate each alert. Analysts on shift 24/7 decide what happens next.
  • MDR[1][2][6]Security experts monitor, detect and respond to incidents.
  • Cloud-based SIEM[2]A cloud-based SIEM that collects, analyzes and responds to security events.
  • CIS AWS Benchmark assessment[8]A self-service assessment of AWS security.
Categories
Headquarters
Tempe, United States[2]Not stated on its pages
Founded
2005[1][4][8]Not stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • February 10, 2026Bishop Fox announced an updated application penetration testing service that combines its expert testing teams with its proprietary AI engine, Cosmos AI.[14]
Not stated on its pages
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 10, 2026[10]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
From its own pages, Bishop Fox sells mainly to organizations that want offensive security testing of their applications, cloud, networks, devices, and AI systems. Bishop Fox says most enterprises manage many applications with constrained budgets and headcount. Customers it describes include a healthcare technology company moving to SaaS, an energy provider facing nation-state threats to critical infrastructure, and a financial services organization. Its hardware testing is aimed at healthcare devices, consumer tech, and industrial systems. Bishop Fox says it works with customers who are looking to safely deploy AI, release a new app or service, or validate corporate governance. Cosmos is delivered as a managed platform, so customers do not deploy or maintain it themselves.UnderDefense MAXI integrates with a customer's security infrastructure, including SIEMs, firewalls and endpoint protection solutions. UnderDefense offers compliance templates to organizations working toward standards such as SOC2 and ISO 27001. UnderDefense MAXI provides executive-level reports for C-level readers.
Last verified
September 27, 2026October 26, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Bishop Fox and UnderDefense are both filed under Penetration testing and red team services.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Bishop Fox's primary category is Penetration testing and red team services; UnderDefense's is MDR and managed SOC.
  • Bishop Fox is also filed under External attack surface management. UnderDefense is also filed under Compliance automation and SOAR and security automation.
  • Bishop Fox lists Cosmos, Penetration Testing Services, Application Penetration Testing, External Penetration Testing, Hardware Penetration Testing and 2 more. UnderDefense lists UnderDefense MAXI, UnderDefense Agentic AI SOC, MDR, Cloud-based SIEM and CIS AWS Benchmark assessment.
  • Bishop Fox is headquartered in Tempe, United States.
  • Bishop Fox was founded in 2005.

What it sells: Bishop Fox

What Cosmos does[3][7][13][14]
Cosmos builds and verifies a living inventory of an organization's external attack surface. It integrates with customer workflows through Jira and ServiceNow, syncing validated findings into existing ticketing systems. Bishop Fox operates and manages Cosmos as part of its services, and customers do not deploy or maintain it.
What Penetration Testing Services does[4]
Bishop Fox penetration testing spans applications, networks, products, cloud, and AI systems. Engagements cover web and mobile apps, cloud environments in AWS, GCP, Azure, and Kubernetes, and IoT, consumer, commercial, and industrial devices.
What Application Penetration Testing does[3][9][14]
Bishop Fox runs in-depth manual and dynamic analyses of Android and iOS devices and apps, guided by OWASP testing methodologies. Bishop Fox AI-Powered Application Penetration Testing delivers validated, expert-reviewed findings across an entire portfolio.
What External Penetration Testing does[10]
Bishop Fox says its External Penetration Testing emulates targeted adversaries and results in discovery of defensive gaps, including likelihood of exploitation and business impact. Testing extends to public cloud storage services and peripheral web apps.
What Continuous Security Testing does[5][8]
Bishop Fox provides continuous security testing that it describes as integral to a successful Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program. Its managed services identify, prioritize, and help remediate business-impacting exposures.
What AIMap does[3]
AIMap is an open-source tool built by Bishop Fox. It discovers, scores, and tests exposed AI endpoints.

What it sells: UnderDefense

What UnderDefense MAXI does[1][2][3][5][6]
UnderDefense MAXI natively monitors endpoints, networks, users and decoy beacons. UnderDefense MAXI provides ready-to-use playbooks, AI-powered alert enrichment and notifications through Slack, Jira or a preferred tool. UnderDefense MAXI provides pre-built compliance templates for standards such as SOC2 and ISO 27001.
What UnderDefense Agentic AI SOC does[4]
UnderDefense Agentic AI SOC uses AI agents that investigate each alert. Analysts on shift 24/7 decide what happens next.
What CIS AWS Benchmark assessment does[8]
UnderDefense offers a self-service CIS AWS Benchmark assessment. The assessment covers evaluating the maturity of cloud security controls, identifying misconfigurations, providing detailed mitigation instructions and giving a summary table with a final CVSS v3.0 score.

Questions about Bishop Fox and UnderDefense

What do Bishop Fox and UnderDefense sell?
Bishop Fox sells Cosmos, Penetration Testing Services, Application Penetration Testing, External Penetration Testing, Hardware Penetration Testing and 2 more. UnderDefense sells UnderDefense MAXI, UnderDefense Agentic AI SOC, MDR, Cloud-based SIEM and CIS AWS Benchmark assessment.
Are Bishop Fox and UnderDefense in the same category?
They share Penetration testing and red team services. Bishop Fox's primary category is Penetration testing and red team services and UnderDefense's is MDR and managed SOC.
Where are Bishop Fox and UnderDefense headquartered?
Bishop Fox is headquartered in Tempe, United States.
When were Bishop Fox and UnderDefense founded?
Bishop Fox was founded in 2005.
Who are Bishop Fox and UnderDefense sold to?
From its own pages, Bishop Fox sells mainly to organizations that want offensive security testing of their applications, cloud, networks, devices, and AI systems. UnderDefense MAXI integrates with a customer's security infrastructure, including SIEMs, firewalls and endpoint protection solutions.
What have Bishop Fox and UnderDefense announced recently?
February 10, 2026: Bishop Fox announced an updated application penetration testing service that combines its expert testing teams with its proprietary AI engine, Cosmos AI.

About Bishop Fox

Bishop Fox sells offensive security services, including penetration testing and continuous security testing. Bishop Fox says it has 20 years of offensive security experience and thousands of customer engagements. Bishop Fox was founded by ethical hackers. Bishop Fox says it is behind offensive security tools including Sliver and CloudFox. Bishop Fox applies agentic AI to its offensive testing, and Bishop Fox assesses models and architectures as part of securing AI and LLM initiatives.

Bishop Fox penetration testing spans applications, networks, products, cloud, and AI systems. Bishop Fox offers assessments of AI systems tailored to the customer's use case, priorities, and development lifecycle. Bishop Fox's application offering includes web and mobile app penetration testing, AI-powered portfolio assessments, and secure code review. Application testing covers web, thick-client, e-commerce, single page applications, and APIs. Bishop Fox runs in-depth manual and dynamic analyses of Android and iOS devices and apps, guided by OWASP testing methodologies. Bishop Fox AI-Powered Application Penetration Testing delivers validated, expert-reviewed findings across an entire portfolio. Bishop Fox application testers are fluent in programming languages such as Python, C, C#, C++, Java, JavaScript, GO, Swift, PHP, Rust, and Objective C.[9]

Bishop Fox cloud testing goes beyond configuration reviews to identify critical and exploitable paths in AWS, GCP, Azure, and Kubernetes environments. Bishop Fox network testing simulates real-world attack scenarios to uncover perimeter weaknesses and identify how an attacker could gain access to internal networks. Bishop Fox says its External Penetration Testing emulates targeted adversaries and results in discovery of defensive gaps, including likelihood of exploitation and business impact. Bishop Fox hardware and software testing covers IoT, consumer, commercial, and industrial devices. Hardware testing inspects devices down to electronic components including PCBs, chips, storage, debugging interfaces, and bus protocols. Bishop Fox experts test strategic partners and 3rd party vendors.[11]

Bishop Fox provides continuous security testing that it describes as integral to a successful Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program. Bishop Fox managed services identify, prioritize, and help customers remediate business-impacting exposures. Bishop Fox Attack Surface Discovery continuously finds, validates, and attributes perimeter assets. Bishop Fox Emerging Threat Testing delivers a per-environment verdict. Bishop Fox says its red team work lets customers face the tactics real adversaries use and see how their team responds. Bishop Fox customizes its reporting, weekly status reports, and post-engagement reviews to the unique needs of the customer's organization.[12][13]

Cosmos is Bishop Fox's cloud-native technology platform and the foundation of its offensive security services. Cosmos is built on stateless microservices that auto scale to enterprise volumes, continuously discovers external assets, and routes high-confidence findings into an expert human validation pipeline. Cosmos builds and verifies a living inventory of an organization's external attack surface. Cosmos runs daily automations that validate reachability and protocol behavior so customers see only verified, visible assets. Cosmos captures evidence in the form of technology fingerprints, screenshots, and service metadata. Cosmos uses tenant- and organization-level cloud connectors. Cosmos integrates with customer workflows through Jira and ServiceNow, syncing validated findings into existing ticketing systems. Validated outputs are surfaced through the Bishop Fox Portal, which provides an asset inventory, confirmed findings, indicators of exposure, and a triage workflow integrated with customer ticketing and collaboration systems. Bishop Fox operates and manages Cosmos as part of its services, and customers do not deploy or maintain the platform themselves.[7]

Bishop Fox built AIMap, an open-source tool that discovers, scores, and tests exposed AI endpoints. Sliver is a cross-platform general purpose implant framework. Sliver supports asymmetrically encrypted C2 over DNS, HTTP, HTTPS, and Mutual TLS.

Bishop Fox says it helps customers who are looking to safely deploy AI, release a new app or service, or validate corporate governance. A healthcare technology company moving to SaaS needed to validate its multi-tenant cloud platform, secure connected device provisioning, and maintain visibility across a growing attack surface. An energy provider faces constant threats from nation-state actors targeting critical infrastructure. Equifax runs year-round perimeter testing to safeguard high-value data. Zoom used continuous attack surface monitoring to protect its expanding platform. Apollo selected Bishop Fox to perform a Google Security Assessment of its application, external perimeter, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environment. John Deere relied on in-depth product security reviews and ongoing protection through a managed offensive security platform. Ventrilo.ai partnered with Bishop Fox for application penetration testing and AI security assessments. A financial services organization tested Bishop Fox's Cosmos AI platform against a realistic application.[7][9][13]

Bishop Fox on the record

Sources

Bishop Fox full record

  1. [1]bishopfox.comBishop Fox · bishopfox.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]ContactBishop Fox · bishopfox.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Bishop Fox | The leading authority in offensive security… | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Offensive Security: Penetration Testing Services | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Continuous Security Testing Services | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Red Team Services | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Cosmos Technology Platform | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Offensive Security Services | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Application Penetration Testing Services | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]External Penetration Testing for Network Security | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Hardware Security Assessments and Product Security… | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Bishop Fox | Tactics of Deception: Protecting Trust and PurposeBishop Fox · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Explore Customers of Our Offensive Security Solutions | Bishop FoxBishop Fox · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Bishop Fox Redefines Offensive Security at Scale with AI-Augmented Penetration TestingBishop Fox · published February 10, 2026 · Tier A

UnderDefense full record

  1. [1]underdefense.comUnderDefense · underdefense.com · undated page, accessed October 26, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Compliance PricingUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Agentic AI SOC & Compliance Automation Platform | UnderDefenseUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Elastic Cloud Pricing 2026: Serverless, Hosted, and SIEMUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Cloudflare Pricing 2026: WAF, Zero Trust, and EnterpriseUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Palo Alto Networks Pricing 2026: Firewalls, SASE, and XDRUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]2025 MXDR Pricing Guide: Choosing the Right MXDR providerUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Episode 4: Cyber Resilience 201 — AWS Cloud Security - UnderDefenseUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]E-Mail Under Attack - UnderDefenseUnderDefense · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]UnderDefense MAXI Reviews & Product DetailsG2 · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier C

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