The Berlin Rhysida Breach: Why Static Security Fails and How AI-Native AEV Fixes It
When the Rhysida ransomware group breached Berlin’s state network, they didn’t rely on zero-day exploits or complex attack chains. They slipped through the front door using a phishing, compromised VPN credential. Once inside, they escalated privileges, moved laterally across flat subnets, and spent five undetected days exfiltrating 1.44 million sensitive files (5.8 TB); including critical water supply maps and CBRN disaster plans. When Berlin stood firm and refused their 30 BTC (~€2.1M) extortion demand, the attackers dumped the entire dataset on the dark web.
This incident reveals a critical flaw in cybersecurity across the continent: static security testing plans and point-in-time penetration tests mean nothing if defenses aren’t continuously tested before a hacker does it for you.
What Nemesis Is
Nemesis strengthens your defenses by continuously running the exact attacks real adversaries use against your infrastructure, then giving your security team the specific detection rules and fixes that matter for your organization.
Engineered and operated in Europe, Nemesis is an AI-native Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) platform. It generates and continuously adapts live attacks directly inside your environment and suggests remediations and detections to catch them.
Why Non-Adaptive Defenses Are Failing European Organizations
AI tools can now uncover vulnerabilities in hours, but they can’t see your infrastructure or security controls, so they can’t tell you what a finding means for your environment. Nemesis applies AI directly to your infrastructure, showing you what an attacker could really do with it.
Hackers exfiltrate data using legitimate administrative channels and native tools. Vulnerability scanners and pentest tools miss these entirely because no CVE is involved.
Under the NIS2 and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), European regulators no longer care about theoretical security policies. They require proof of operational resilience, threat testing and C-suite accountability.
Security teams often have a clear picture of their known issues, from legacy software to gaps in visibility and controls, but limited time to address them all. Nemesis helps you get your security technical debt under control by highlighting which weaknesses matter most against the threats you’re likely to face.
How Nemesis Connects Offense and Defense
Nemesis automates the complete Threat-to-Test and Improvement feedback loop. When a new threat emerges, whether a fresh CVE or an attack technique; Your team can leverage the Nemesis AI Operator to automatically explore your environment, test your security controls, and map potential impact in minutes. Nemesis then goes one step further: it derives mitigations and detection rules directly from the results that can be deployed and tested right away.
Nemesis executes live, adapting attack scenarios directly in your network without disrupting operations.
It validates pass/fail outcomes based on actual control performance, providing the exact proof required for DORA and NIS2 audits.
It hands your SOC ready Sigma, YARA, and SIEM rules for whatever bypassed your controls.
Improvements are immediately visible in Nemesis.
It ranks security gaps by exploitability rather than generic CVSS ratings.
The European Edge: Sovereign Offense with Local Control
Nemesis was built specifically to address the strict operational and legal requirements of European enterprises and critical infrastructure:
Our attack engine is built on insights from leading security experts and R&D partners, proven in live fire exercises and productive environments. We feed actual hacker techniques directly into the Nemesis AI Operator and execute them live in a safe way.
Nemesis shows what happens after an attacker gets inside beyond vulnerability scanning and pentesting. We test data theft over everyday tools like email, where no software bug is needed; and model how supply chain attacks spread across networks.
Nemesis AI provides unique dynamic testing capabilities that can be run fully air-gapped and on-prem, without sending data to frontier models.
Designed around GDPR and European data sovereignty rules, Nemesis runs fully on-premises or air-gapped setups. You get attack analysis without sending data outside your network or to third-party clouds.
