CISOs are drowning in a sea of tools, alerts, and fragmented security insights. It’s a problem Michael Mumcuoglu knows all too well. As the CEO and founder of CardinalOps, he’s on a mission to transform how organizations approach threat exposure – moving from reactive firefighting to proactive, intelligent defense.
“Over the years, organizations have found themselves buying more and more tools, each providing insights into different types of exposures,” Mumcuoglu explains. “But they’re actually making security more complex, not simpler.”
The Complexity Trap
Picture this: A typical enterprise security stack now includes 12 to 30 different tools, each promising to solve a specific security challenge. Cloud misconfigurations? There’s a tool for that. Endpoint vulnerabilities? Another tool. Identity privilege management? Yet another solution. The result? A fragmented, overwhelming security landscape that creates more noise than clarity.
“These organizations are buying tools faster than they can effectively manage them,” Mumcuoglu says. “It’s like trying to conduct an orchestra where each musician is playing from a different sheet music.”
The root of the problem lies in siloed thinking. Security teams are divided, each managing their specific tools with partial context. They lack a holistic view of the organization’s true threat exposure.
It’s a bit like trying to understand a complex painting by looking through a series of tiny keyholes – you’ll never see the full picture.
From Detection to Unified Exposure Management
CardinalOps emerged from this fundamental challenge. Founded in 2020, the company started with a laser focus on detection engineering. But Mumcuoglu and his team quickly realized that detection was just one piece of a much larger puzzle. “We’re not just looking at detection anymore,” he explains. “We’re addressing the entire spectrum of threat exposures – from misconfigured assets to gaps in detection coverage, from ineffective controls to software vulnerabilities.” The company has developed what they call a “unified exposure management platform” – a solution that consolidates insights from across an organization’s existing security stack.
It’s not about replacing tools, but about creating the critical “glue” that makes those tools work together intelligently.
Real-World Impact: A Spanish Energy Company’s Transformation
To understand the real-world impact, consider a multinational energy company in Spain. Before CardinalOps, they were frustrated. Year after year, penetration testers would easily breach their defenses, exposing critical vulnerabilities. “Within six to nine months of implementing our solution, they brought in the top two penetration testers in Europe,” Mumcuoglu recalls. “This time, every single attempt was caught and repelled immediately.”
It’s a powerful demonstration of how automation and holistic thinking can dramatically improve an organization’s cyber resilience.
The CTEM Conversation: More Than Just an Acronym
The industry has been buzzing about Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), but Mumcuoglu is quick to point out the nuances. While Gartner defines CTEM as a program, not a platform, CardinalOps sees things differently.
“We’re not just enabling a program – we’re driving the entire approach,” he says. “Our goal is to be the proactive force that helps organizations systematically reduce risk.”
This means moving beyond reactive alert management to a continuous, intelligence-driven model of threat prevention.
At RSAC, CardinalOps showcased over 50 integrations across security categories – from endpoint and identity security to network and governance tools. The goal? To pull insights from existing infrastructure and translate threat intelligence into actionable steps.
“We call this TI Ops – threat intelligence operationalization,” Mumcuoglu explains. “It’s about taking an adversary report and immediately understanding how well your current controls can detect, respond, and mitigate those specific threats.”
Looking Ahead: The Future of Cyber Defense
As we look back on RSAC 2025, the message was clear: complexity is the enemy of security. Organizations need platforms that can cut through the noise, provide unified visibility, and enable proactive defense.
“We’re not just selling a tool,” Mumcuoglu emphasizes. “We’re offering a new approach to cybersecurity – one that turns theoretical value into practical, strong defense.”
For CISOs drowning in alerts and tools, CardinalOps represents a lifeline – a way to transform security from a reactive cost center to a strategic, intelligence-driven function.
As cyber threats continue to evolve, the organizations that will succeed are those that can see the full picture. Those that can break down silos, leverage automation, and approach security as a holistic, continuous process. CardinalOps is leading that charge – one unified exposure at a time.
About the Author
Pete Green is the CISO / CTO of Anvil Works, a ProCloud SaaS company. With over 25 years of experience in information technology and cybersecurity, Pete is a seasoned and accomplished security practitioner.
Throughout his career, he has held a wide range of technical and leadership roles, including LAN/WLAN Engineer, Threat Analyst, Security Project Manager, Security Architect, Cloud Security Architect, Principal Security Consultant, Director of IT, CTO, CEO, Virtual CISO, and CISO.
Pete has supported clients across numerous industries, including federal, state, and local government, as well as financial services, healthcare, food services, manufacturing, technology, transportation, and hospitality.
He holds a Master of Computer Information Systems in Information Security from Boston University, which is recognized as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance / Cyber Defense (CAE IA/CD) by the NSA and DHS. He also holds a Master of Business Administration in Informatics.
