CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Cranium vs NowSecure

Cranium sells Cranium ONE, one platform for end-to-end AI security and governance, which it describes as infrastructure and LLM-agnostic. NowSecure sells mobile application risk management software that analyzes compiled iOS and Android app binaries on real devices to find hidden AI, risky SDKs, vulnerabilities and data flows. CISO Tribune files both under AI model and agent security. 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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  • Cranium
  • NowSecure
Cranium vs NowSecure: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
CraniumCranium sells Cranium ONE, one platform for end-to-end AI security and governance, which it describes as infrastructure and LLM-agnostic.cranium.aiNowSecureNowSecure sells mobile application risk management software that analyzes compiled iOS and Android app binaries on real devices to find hidden AI, risky SDKs, vulnerabilities and data flows.nowsecure.com
What it sells
  • Discover[1][16]Gives visibility into every AI model, agent, dataset and vendor across an enterprise and builds a system of record for them.
  • Govern[1][3][4][5][8][12]Defines, implements and enforces AI policy mapped to frameworks such as the NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act.
  • Secure[1][6][13]Stress-tests models against adversarial threats and applies runtime defenses and targeted remediation.
  • Prove[1][7]Generates real-time compliance evidence, called Cranium AI Cards, to share with customers, partners and regulators.
  • Mobile Application Risk Management[1][2][3][5]Continuously assesses apps a company builds and third-party apps its workforce uses.
  • Dynamic Mobile SBOM[7]Generates SBOMs from binary analysis of iOS, Android and hybrid apps.
  • NowSecure Privacy[8]Protects sensitive data and minimizes compliance exposure in mobile apps.
Categories
Headquarters
Short Hills, United States[3]Chicago, United States[1]
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Privately held[9][15]Not stated on its pages
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • May 21, 2026Cranium AI and ISTARI announced a strategic partnership combining Cranium AI's security and governance platform with ISTARI's cyber resilience advisory expertise.[3]
  • May 21, 2026Cranium AI announced it has acquired Aiceberg, an agentic AI security and risk management company, and Aiceberg CEO Alex Schlager becomes Cranium AI's Chief Technology Officer.[15]
  • May 21, 2026Cranium AI and ISTARI, a cyber resilience advisory firm, announced a strategic partnership to offer organizations an AI security and governance solution.[8]
  • February 4, 2026Cranium AI announced it discovered an exploitation technique for hijacking agentic AI coding assistants and released free open-source IDE plugins for developers.[16]
  • April 28, 2026NowSecure announced Mobile App Risk Intelligence (MARI), giving enterprises evidence-based visibility into third-party mobile apps, including hidden AI components and data flows.[13]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: listed, seen October 24, 2026[9]
  • G2: listed, seen November 4, 2026[4]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
From its own pages, the company sells mainly to buyers who run AI across many models, since it states that its platform works with any model, any framework. It has pages for industries named Financial Services, Life Sciences and Telecommunications. It also has pages by job function for Compliance & Risk, Governance & Policy, Third-Party & Vendor Risk and Data Science. The pages also say that global carriers and banks are on board.From its own pages, NowSecure sells mainly to enterprises that build, use and manage mobile apps. NowSecure addresses privacy, compliance and AI governance roles. NowSecure addresses AppSec, DevSecOps and mobile engineering roles. NowSecure addresses workforce app and third-party risk roles. NowSecure says financial institutions are accountable for every component shipped to production. NowSecure helps federal, local and state agencies deliver secure mobile apps.
Last verified
September 27, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Cranium and NowSecure are both filed under AI model and agent security.
  • Both are headquartered in the United States.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Cranium's primary category is AI governance; NowSecure's is Mobile security.
  • Cranium lists Discover, Govern, Secure and Prove. NowSecure lists Mobile Application Risk Management, Dynamic Mobile SBOM and NowSecure Privacy.
  • Cranium is headquartered in Short Hills, United States. NowSecure is headquartered in Chicago, United States.
  • Cranium is privately held.

What it sells: NowSecure

What Mobile Application Risk Management does[1][2][3][5]
NowSecure gives enterprises continuous visibility into the security, privacy, compliance, and AI risk inside the mobile apps they build, use, and manage. Findings are based on what shipped apps do on real devices at runtime.
What Dynamic Mobile SBOM does[7]
NowSecure inspects compiled iOS, Android, and hybrid apps to identify every dependency, framework, and SDK actually present. It generates SBOMs for each build, storing version history and provenance.
What NowSecure Privacy does[8]
NowSecure Privacy protects sensitive data, minimizes compliance exposure, and maintains trust. NowSecure describes continuous mobile privacy testing as identifying excessive permissions, hidden data sharing, insecure SDK behaviors, and policy violations across iOS and Android applications.

Questions about Cranium and NowSecure

What do Cranium and NowSecure sell?
Cranium sells Discover, Govern, Secure and Prove. NowSecure sells Mobile Application Risk Management, Dynamic Mobile SBOM and NowSecure Privacy.
Are Cranium and NowSecure in the same category?
They share AI model and agent security. Cranium's primary category is AI governance and NowSecure's is Mobile security.
Where are Cranium and NowSecure headquartered?
Cranium is headquartered in Short Hills, United States. NowSecure is headquartered in Chicago, United States.
Who owns Cranium and NowSecure?
Cranium is privately held.
Who are Cranium and NowSecure sold to?
From its own pages, the company sells mainly to buyers who run AI across many models, since it states that its platform works with any model, any framework. From its own pages, NowSecure sells mainly to enterprises that build, use and manage mobile apps.
What have Cranium and NowSecure announced recently?
May 21, 2026: Cranium AI and ISTARI announced a strategic partnership combining Cranium AI's security and governance platform with ISTARI's cyber resilience advisory expertise. April 28, 2026: NowSecure announced Mobile App Risk Intelligence (MARI), giving enterprises evidence-based visibility into third-party mobile apps, including hidden AI components and data flows.

About Cranium

Cranium sells Cranium ONE, one platform for end-to-end AI security and governance, which it describes as infrastructure and LLM-agnostic. Cranium organizes the platform around the AI Trust Loop, five stages that run continuously: Discover, Observe, Govern, Secure and Prove.[1][4][5][6]

Cranium says AI adoption expands what an enterprise has to defend. Its pages name three problem areas: shadow AI, autonomous agents and third-party AI. Cranium says teams adopt models and copilots faster than security can see them, and that agents plan, call tools, read memory and hand off to other agents. Cranium also says an AI supply chain runs through vendors a buyer does not control.[1]

In the Discover stage, Cranium says a buyer gains visibility into every AI model, agent, dataset and vendor across the enterprise and builds one living system of record. Cranium describes automated AI discovery and inventory, and an AI Bill of Materials for each system.[1][10]

In the Observe stage, Cranium says buyers can track, evaluate and understand complex model and agent behaviors, along with token usage and cost efficiency. Cranium describes sessions views, sequence diagrams of agent tool calls and event-level drill-downs. It cites 100+ risk signals and 250+ intent classifications. Cranium says verdicts come from deterministic classifiers, and that Trace shows the samples, labels and relevance scores behind each decision.[1][6][11]

In the Govern stage, Cranium says buyers can define, implement and enforce AI policy, mapped to NIST AI RMF, the EU AI Act and internal standards. Cranium also names ISO 42001 as a mapped framework. Cranium ComplianceAgent automates framework completion with human oversight, and continuous compliance scoring shows where each system stands.[1][12]

In the Secure stage, Cranium says buyers can stress-test models against real-world threats, surface vulnerabilities and apply targeted controls before and after deployment. Cranium Arena is its agent-based red teaming, using MITRE ATLAS, OWASP and Cranium AI threat libraries. Cranium Arena Shield turns findings into auto-generated remediations and guardrails, and re-tests to verify the fix.[1][13]

In the Prove stage, Cranium says buyers can demonstrate compliance posture on demand and share evidence with customers, partners and regulators through real-time Cranium AI Cards and Trust Hubs.[1][14]

Cranium says it fits its controls to finance, life sciences and telecom. Cranium states that it is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and ISO 27001 certified, and an active member of the U.S AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC), established by NIST.[1][2][5][10]

Cranium on the record

Sources

Cranium full record

  1. [1]Cranium – Secure & Govern Enterprise AICranium · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Cranium ai security 2023KPMG · kpmg.com · published April 5, 2023 · Tier A
  3. [3]Cranium AI and ISTARI Forge Global Alliance to Drive Enterprise AI Security and GovernanceCranium · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]AI Security & Governance Platform – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]AI Security & Governance Solutions – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Enterprise AI Security Solutions – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]AI Compliance — EU AI Act, NIST & ISO 42001 – CraniumCranium · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Cranium AI and ISTARI Forge Global Alliance to Drive Enterprise AI Security and GovernanceBusiness Wire · published May 21, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Cranium Reviews, Ratings & Features 2026 | Gartner Peer InsightsGartner Peer Insights · undated page, accessed October 24, 2026 · Tier C
  10. [10]For Security Teams – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]AI Observability & Runtime Monitoring – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]AI Governance & Policy Enforcement – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]AI Red Teaming & Attack Simulation – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]For Compliance & Risk Leaders – Cranium AICranium · undated page, accessed November 5, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Cranium AI Acquires Aiceberg to Strengthen its End-to-End AI Security, Governance and Agentic AI PlatformCranium AI · published May 21, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Cranium AI Issues Critical Remediation for Vulnerability to Protect Leading AI Coding AssistantsBusiness Wire · published February 4, 2026 · Tier A

NowSecure full record

  1. [1]Nowsecure launches ai data partner program to expand mobile application risk intelligence for security platformsNowSecure · nowsecure.com · published March 18, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]nowsecure.comNowSecure · nowsecure.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Enterprise Mobile App Security & AI Governance | NowSecureNowSecure · undated page, accessed October 27, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]NowSecure Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 27, 2026 · Tier C
  5. [5]Mobile App Risk Management Platform & Programs | NowSecureNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Mobile app security testing (MAST) for iOS & Android | NowSecureNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Dynamic SBOM for iOS and Android Mobile Apps | NowSecureNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Mobile Application Privacy Testing | NowSecure PrivacyNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Mobile App Security Standards & Compliance | NowSecureNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Financial Services - NowSecureNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Government - NowSecureNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Request NowSecure SOC 2 ReportNowSecure · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]NowSecure Launches MARI to Close the AI Governance Gap in Third-Party Mobile AppsNowSecure · published April 28, 2026 · Tier A

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