
Penetration Testing & Attack Simulation
NodeZero
Autonomous pentesting that chains and verifies attack paths across network, cloud, and AD.
NodeZero Overview
What it does
NodeZero is an Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) platform that executes autonomous, agentless penetration tests in production environments without causing downtime or deploying persistent agents. Its core mechanism is exploit chain synthesis: the platform sequences individual weaknesses (CVEs, misconfigurations, exposed credentials, and policy gaps) into end-to-end attack paths that replicate real attacker behavior across internal networks, cloud environments, Active Directory, and Kubernetes clusters, then generates verified proof-of-exploitation evidence for each chained path.
How it works
NodeZero deploys via Docker container or OVA for internal tests and ephemeral Horizon3.ai cloud infrastructure for external tests, leaving no persistent agents on the network. The platform performs OSINT-driven reconnaissance and autonomous network traversal, then sequences discovered CVEs, misconfigurations, and credential weaknesses into attack chains without predefined scripts, stopping when it reaches proof-of-exploitation or exhausts available paths. Each operation produces diagrammed attack paths, prioritized remediation guidance with systemic fix identification, and a Quick Verify function that re-tests specific weaknesses after remediation. The NSA Continuous Autonomous Penetration Testing (CAPT) program, covering 500-plus Defense Industrial Base participants, runs on NodeZero.
Credentials and traction
NodeZero Federal is FedRAMP High Authorized (FedHIVE package FR1802451335) and, in May 2026, achieved Tradewinds Awardable status through the Department of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office's Solutions Marketplace. Horizon3.ai was named a 2026 IT-Harvest Fast Growth Vendor Award winner. The platform serves more than 5,200 customers across government, financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing, and underpins the NSA Continuous Autonomous Penetration Testing program spanning 500-plus Defense Industrial Base participants.
Key Capabilities
mapped to solution categoriesDynamically discovers and chains exposures (unpatched CVEs, misconfigurations, and credential weaknesses) into multi-step exploit paths without predefined scripts, sequencing weaknesses in the order an attacker would based on live environment state.
Safely exploits discovered weaknesses to produce empirical evidence of exploitability for each finding, replacing theoretical vulnerability data with confirmed attack outcomes and reducing false positives.
Executes cloud-specific attack techniques including IAM privilege escalation, SSRF to metadata services, storage bucket enumeration, and cross-account role assumption to surface cloud exploit paths.
Runs attack technique sequences on a scheduled or continuous basis against production controls, surfacing control drift between point-in-time assessments without human intervention.
Ranks remediation by the impact of validated attack paths and blast radius rather than raw CVSS scores, directing effort toward the weaknesses that actually enable compromise.
Re-tests specific validated weaknesses after remediation to confirm each fix closed the attack path, closing the validation loop between testing and remediation.
Pulls current threat intelligence from native feeds or third-party integrations to build and run validations against newly disclosed threats, letting teams confirm whether defenses block an emerging campaign or CVE shortly after it is published.
Compliance
certificationsIntegrations
compatible toolsImplementation & support
Info last updated on July 11, 2026
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