Review & Remediate Attack Path Risks
Implementation Effort: Medium
This process requires security teams to use Defender for Cloud’s attack path analysis tools, review findings, and coordinate remediation actions across affected API and backend resources.
User Impact: Low
All actions are performed by security and platform administrators; no direct user involvement is required.
Overview
Microsoft Defender for APIs, through its integration with Defender Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), enables organizations to identify and remediate attack paths—sequences of exploitable misconfigurations or vulnerabilities that could be used to compromise APIs and connected resources.
Attack path analysis helps security teams:
- Visualize how threats could move laterally through APIs to backend services.
- Prioritize remediation based on risk level, sensitivity of data, and exposure.
- Focus on high-impact issues such as unauthenticated APIs, exposed endpoints, or misconfigured access controls 1.
How to Review and Remediate Attack Paths
- Go to Microsoft Defender for Cloud > Attack path analysis.
- Select an attack path to view affected resources and nodes.
- Click on a node to view associated insights and recommendations.
- Select a recommendation and follow the guided steps to remediate it 1.
- Use the Remediation tab to track progress and validate fixes.
Attack path analysis is powered by a context-aware risk engine that dynamically prioritizes threats based on exploitability and business impact. This ensures that remediation efforts are focused on the most critical risks.
Failing to review and remediate attack paths can leave APIs and backend systems vulnerable to chained exploits. This capability supports the Zero Trust principle of "Assume breach" by continuously analyzing and mitigating potential lateral movement paths.