Index › Vendors › IBM X-Force Red · September 2026 Edition

IBM · 1 category · Named, not ranked

IBM X-Force Red

10Judge labels

0First choices

2Negative labels

5 of 12Models named it

1Category

September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.2, every buyer segment counted.

Standing

2 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. IBM X-Force Red was named 2 times in PTaaS, where Cobalt led with 44%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.

By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.

Small business54 of 57

under the label threshold

Mid-market32 of 76

under the label threshold

Enterprise15 of 73

under the label threshold

In ptaas · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named IBM X-Force Red for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Penetration testing as a service	Security operations	0%	32 of 76	0%	2	under 10 labels · led by Cobalt at 44%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for IBM X-Force Red yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated IBM X-Force Red across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	Alternative	Mention	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	1	0	1
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	0	0
Mistral Small	0	0	0
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	0
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	1	1
Kimi K2	0	0	0
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct1 labelNone

Paraphrase1 labelNone

Comparative7 labelsNone

Budget-constrained1 labelNone

Scale-constrained0 labelsNone

Negative0 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative10 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 0 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“IBM X Force Red offers global consulting strength with seasoned experts and threat intelligence for large-scale, comprehensive security testing” Claude Haiku 4.5 · PTaaS · comparative prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

No model argued against it.

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as IBM X-Force Red, over the 10 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and IBM X-Force Red was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Synack10 of 102Not in the top three

Cobalt8 of 102Not in the top three

Bishop Fox8 of 101Not in the top three

NetSPI7 of 104Not in the top three

HackerOne6 of 101Not in the top three

Mandiant5 of 100Not in the top three

NCC Group5 of 100Not in the top three

Coalfire4 of 101Not in the top three

BreachLock4 of 100Not in the top three

Astra Security3 of 100Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named IBM X-Force Red. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 10 of the 10 answers that named IBM X-Force Red and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

deepstrike.io10

synack.com8

underdefense.com6

getastra.com5

redbotsecurity.com5

beaglesecurity.com4

brightdefense.com4

cybergl.com4

cybri.com4

soc2auditors.org4

No domain is on file for IBM X-Force Red, so its own site is not marked.

Pages cited

deepstrike.io/blog/top-penetration-testing-companies8

synack.com/blog/best-penetration-testing-companies8

underdefense.com/blog/penetration-testing-services6

redbotsecurity.com/penetration-testing-companies5

cybergl.com/blog/top-penetration-testing-companies4

cybri.com/blog/best-penetration-testing-vendors4

getastra.com/blog/penetration-testing/companies4

soc2auditors.org/penetration-testing-firms4

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as IBM X-Force Red

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as IBM X-Force Red; a claim can dispute any of them.

IBM X Force Red 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when IBM X-Force Red's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as IBM X-Force Red, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at the vendor's own domain is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.