New Bitdefender assessment helps organizations identify and eliminate hidden internal attack paths

Bitdefender has announced the Bitdefender Internal Attack Surface Assessment, a complimentary evaluation that helps organizations identify and reduce hidden internal cyber risks caused by unnecessary user access to applications, tools, and operating system utilities commonly exploited in attacks. The assessment provides organizations with a data-driven view of their internal attack surface and offers actionable guidance to help prioritize and remediate exposure.

Businesses face growing challenges defending against Living-Off-the-Land (LOTL), fileless, and other non-malware attack techniques, which leverage legitimate operating system tools and trusted applications to breach systems and evade detection while blending into normal activity.

Analysis of more than 700,000 real-world security incidents found that legitimate tools and LOTL techniques are involved in more than 84% of major attacks. Cybercriminals increasingly exploit widely available utilities such as PowerShell, WMIC, and others to gain access, escalate privileges and move laterally within environments undetected. As a result, organizations are being forced to shift toward a prevention-first security posture to proactively close attack paths before they can be exploited.

The Bitdefender Internal Attack Surface Assessment addresses this critical security gap through a guided engagement that helps organizations uncover this largely invisible internal exposure, assess its impact on overall risk and identify practical steps for remediation. Organizations enroll and immediately begin assessing and monitoring their environment with no disruption to employees or daily operations.

The assessment is powered by Bitdefender GravityZone PHASR (Proactive Hardening and Attack Surface Reduction), a first-to-market endpoint security innovation that combines dynamic, behavior-based security hardening with real-time threat intelligence. It helps identify excessive user access and restrict or block unnecessary applications and tools without impacting business operations.

Key benefits of the Internal Attack Surface Assessment include:

• Quantify internal risk at the user level – Gain precise visibility into attack surface exposure down to each user, including access to applications, tools and utilities, mapped against their baseline behavior and real-time threat intelligence.
• Identify shadow IT and unauthorized tools – Uncover shadow IT and unauthorized tools, including unusual network activity, access to non-approved binaries, and unrecognized applications attempting to access company resources.
• Reduce the attack surface using actionable insights – Receive actionable recommendations to focus mitigation and begin hardening the internal attack surface, with the option to apply controls manually or automatically with Bitdefender guidance. Organizations can reduce their attack surface by up to 95%, significantly lowering exposure to modern attack techniques.

“Cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting legitimate applications and system tools to bypass traditional defenses, creating a growing and often invisible attack surface that is difficult to defend,” said Andrei Florescu, president and GM at Bitdefender Business Solutions Group. “The Bitdefender Internal Attack Surface Assessment gives organizations a clear, data-driven view of these risks and a path to remediation. We are offering it at no cost to help level the playing field, enabling organizations to identify and close critical gaps in their internal attack surface as adversaries rapidly shift tactics.”