Evidence comparison
Sophos and Bitdefender: what the public record shows about each
Both products turn up on endpoint security (edr and xdr) shortlists, so this page puts their two evidence records next to each other: 58 items on Sophos and 41 on Bitdefender, each one linked to the source it came from. It does not name a winner, and the section below explains why the numbers cannot be subtracted from one another.
Read the counts correctly
More advisories does not mean less secure. A vulnerability register records what researchers found and what the vendor disclosed. A product deployed in thousands of organisations with a mature disclosure process accumulates far more entries than a product nobody audits. A low count can mean a small install base, a young product or a vendor that publishes little, and a high count often marks the opposite.
The two counts are not measured with equal precision. An advisory is only listed against a vendor when the register ties it to one of its products by name, and vendors differ enormously in how consistently their products are named. Here that gap is 0 unattributable entries for Sophos against 2 for Bitdefender, which moves the advisory row far more than the products do. Both numbers are in the table so the difference is visible rather than hidden.
Treat this page as two records shown together, never as one score minus another.
The two records side by side
| Measure | Sophos | Bitdefender |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence items in the recordSize of the record, not a quality signal. | 58 | 41 |
| Kinds of source | 7 | 4 |
| Advisories attributed to the vendor's productsCounts scrutiny and deployment breadth. See the caution above. | 38 | 33 |
| Register entries that could not be attributedEntries naming the vendor that could not be tied to one of its products, so they are excluded from the row above. Read the two rows together: where this number is high, the registers describe that vendor's products less consistently, and the advisory count above says more about naming than about the product. | 0 | 2 |
| Of those, in the CISA known-exploited catalogueExploitation observed in the wild. The one count worth reading closely. | 6 | 0 |
| Share from government registers | 76% | 85% |
| Share the vendor cannot edit | 93% | 100% |
| Public practitioner threadsReflects community size as much as product behaviour. | 5 | 0 |
| Most recent entry | Jul 16, 2026 | Jul 15, 2026 |
| Sources last re-queried | Jul 30, 2026 | Jul 17, 2026 |
Where each record comes from
The registers and platforms behind each column, with the body that operates each one. A record resting on government registers carries different weight from one resting on the vendor's own documentation, which is why this is shown per vendor rather than merged.
Sophos
| Source | Operated by | Classification | Items | Latest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| European Vulnerability Database | ENISA, European Union | Authoritative | 25 | Sep 09, 2025 |
| CERT-Bund security advisories | BSI, Federal Republic of Germany | Authoritative | 13 | Jul 22, 2025 |
| Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue | CISA, United States | Authoritative | 6 | Feb 06, 2025 |
| Engineering discussions | Hacker News, public threads | Independent | 5 | Dec 11, 2024 |
| Practitioner discussions | Reddit, public threads | Independent | 3 | Apr 07, 2026 |
| Analyst, review and reference sources | Recognised analysts, review marketplaces and technology press | Independent | 2 | Jul 16, 2026 |
| The vendor's own documentation | Vendor website, indexed by nexalign | Vendor-controlled | 4 | Jul 01, 2026 |
Bitdefender
| Source | Operated by | Classification | Items | Latest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| European Vulnerability Database | ENISA, European Union | Authoritative | 28 | Jul 14, 2026 |
| CERT-Bund security advisories | BSI, Federal Republic of Germany | Authoritative | 7 | Jul 15, 2026 |
| Analyst, review and reference sources | Recognised analysts, review marketplaces and technology press | Independent | 4 | Jul 03, 2026 |
| Practitioner discussions | Reddit, public threads | Independent | 2 | May 11, 2026 |
Documented vulnerabilities
Only entries tied to a product of the named vendor by a structural signal are listed: an advisory reference on the vendor's own domain, the vendor as the assigning authority, or the affected product list naming it. Entries that merely mention a vendor in passing are excluded from both columns.
Sophos
- CVE-2020-15069criticalCVSS 9.8Known exploitedFeb 06, 2025
Sophos XG Firewall Buffer Overflow Vulnerability
- CVE-2023-1671criticalCVSS 9.8Known exploitedNov 16, 2023
Sophos Web Appliance Command Injection Vulnerability
- CVE-2022-3236criticalCVSS 9.8Known exploitedSep 23, 2022
Sophos Firewall Code Injection Vulnerability
- CVE-2022-1040criticalCVSS 9.8Known exploitedMar 31, 2022
Sophos Firewall Authentication Bypass Vulnerability
- CVE-2020-25223criticalCVSS 9.8Known exploitedMar 25, 2022
Sophos SG UTM Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
- CVE-2020-12271criticalCVSS 10.0Known exploitedNov 03, 2021
Sophos SFOS SQL Injection Vulnerability
Bitdefender
- WID-SEC-2026-2361mediumCVSS 7.3Jul 15, 2026
Affected products: Bitdefender Total Security, Bitdefender Internet Security
- CVE-2026-6851highCVSS 7.0Jul 14, 2026
An Improper link resolution before file access ('link following') vulnerability in the File Shredder module as used in Bitdefender Total Security and Internet Security on Windows allows a…
- CVE-2026-10047highCVSS 8.5Jun 02, 2026
The Bitdefender Napoca bare-metal hypervisor contains an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the real-mode hook handler, implemented in napoca/kernel/handler.c.
- CVE-2026-10046highCVSS 8.5Jun 02, 2026
Bitdefender Napoca bare-metal hypervisor contains an out-of-bounds write vulnerability in the BIOS INT 0x15 / E820 memory map handler, implemented in napoca/guests/bios_handlers.c.
- WID-SEC-2025-2810mediumCVSS 7.8Dec 11, 2025
Affected products: Bitdefender Antivirus, Bitdefender Total Security, Bitdefender Internet Security
- CVE-2025-7073highCVSS 8.8Dec 10, 2025
A local privilege escalation vulnerability in Bitdefender Total Security versions prior to 27.0.47.241 allows low-privileged attackers to elevate privileges.
What practitioners report
Public threads naming each product in their own title. Not curated for sentiment, and not counted as a verdict: a loud thread is one team's experience, not a measurement.
Sophos
- r/cybersecurityFeb 05, 2026Independent
I’m Ross McKerchar, CISO at Sophos: AMA on tackling the issue of detecting fraudulent remote IT hires and building workable controls.
- Hacker NewsDec 11, 2024Independent
US names Chinese national it alleges was behind 2020 attack on Sophos firewalls
- Hacker NewsNov 12, 2024Independent
Sophos has installed monitoring software on its customers' systems for years
- Hacker NewsNov 01, 2024Independent
Sophos' 5-Year War with the Chinese Hackers Hijacking Its Devices
- Hacker NewsOct 31, 2024Independent
Sophos' 5-Year War with the Chinese Hackers Hijacking Its Devices
Bitdefender
What neither record can tell you
The two lists below are the honest holes in each record. Everything a choice between these two actually turns on sits outside both of them.
Sophos
- Pricing, contract terms, notice periods and support commitments are not part of any public register. They come from the vendor and belong in a negotiation record.
- Certification status such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 or BSI C5 has to be checked against the current certificate and its stated scope. A valid certificate can still exclude the product being bought.
Bitdefender
- A further 2 register entries mention Bitdefender without naming a product of Bitdefender as affected. They are excluded rather than counted as vulnerabilities.
- No public practitioner discussion naming Bitdefender was found in the indexed threads. Operational experience with this product is not represented in this record.
- Pricing, contract terms, notice periods and support commitments are not part of any public register. They come from the vendor and belong in a negotiation record.
- Certification status such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 or BSI C5 has to be checked against the current certificate and its stated scope. A valid certificate can still exclude the product being bought.
Whether Sophos is the right choice is not on this page
A record of what is true about a vendor is one half of a decision. The other half is your context: which criteria matter, how heavily each one weighs, what is a hard no, and who has to sign the result off. No public page can know that, and any page that claims to rank vendors for you is guessing at it.
Typical criteria for this category
Needs your case- Detection Accuracy (MITRE ATT&CK coverage)weight
- MDR / Managed Detection & Responseweight
- Deployment Complexityweight
- Automated Response / Remediationweight
- SIEM Integrationweight
Criteria shown as examples for endpoint security (edr and xdr). Weighting and fit are properties of your decision, not of the vendor, so they are not published here.
What DecisionOS adds on top of this record
- The vendor scored against your criteria with your weighting, not against a generic ranking
- A dealbreaker check against your hard constraints: data residency, contract terms, existing stack
- A side-by-side view of the alternatives on your shortlist, built from this same evidence pool
- This evidence mapped onto your compliance scope: NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, SOC 2
- A decision memo your board can read, with the trade-offs and the reasoning on the record
Questions this page answers
Which is better, Sophos or Bitdefender?
This page does not answer that, and no public page can. Better exists only relative to a decision: which criteria matter, how heavily each weighs, what counts as a dealbreaker and which systems the product has to live next to. What this page gives you is the evidence on both, 58 items on Sophos and 41 on Bitdefender, each with its source, so the judgement rests on the record rather than on marketing.
Does Sophos or Bitdefender have more vulnerabilities?
Sophos currently has 38 attributed advisories in this record and Bitdefender has 33. That comparison is easy to misread. A vulnerability register records what researchers found and what the vendor disclosed, so a widely deployed product with an active disclosure process accumulates more entries than one nobody audits. A low count can equally mean a small install base or a vendor that publishes little. The two figures are also not measured with equal precision: an advisory only counts here when a register ties it to a named product, and 0 entries naming Sophos and 2 naming Bitdefender could not be tied to one. The count worth reading closely is how many entries appear in the CISA catalogue of known exploited vulnerabilities, which is 6 for Sophos and 0 for Bitdefender.
How independent is the evidence on Sophos and Bitdefender?
93 percent of the Sophos record and 100 percent of the Bitdefender record come from sources the vendor does not control: government vulnerability registers, public practitioner threads and a fixed list of recognised analysts and technology press. Material either vendor publishes about itself stays in the record and is labelled as a claim.
What does this comparison of Sophos and Bitdefender leave out?
Pricing, contract terms, notice periods, support commitments and the current scope of any certificate. None of those appear in a public register; they come from the vendor and belong in a negotiation record. Fit with your existing stack and your compliance scope is also absent, because it is a property of your organisation rather than of a endpoint security (edr and xdr) product.
Why does nexalign publish this instead of ranking Sophos and Bitdefender?
Because a ranking would have to invent the buyer. Every quadrant and score sheet silently assumes a weighting that belongs to someone else's decision. nexalign publishes the record and keeps the weighting where it belongs, in DecisionOS, where it is set by the people who have to defend the outcome.
The full records
Sophos: the full evidence record
58 items from 7 kinds of source
Bitdefender: the full evidence record
41 items from 4 kinds of source
Two records do not make a decision
Choosing between Sophos and Bitdefender depends on which criteria matter to you, how heavily each one weighs, what your hard constraints are and who has to sign the result off. DecisionOS takes this same evidence pool, scores it against the criteria of your actual decision and produces a memo that holds up in front of a board and an auditor.