Bitdefender is a multinational cybersecurity technology company dual-headquartered in Bucharest, Romania and Santa Clara, California,[2] with offices in the United States, Europe, Australia and the Middle East.

Bitdefender develops and delivers cybersecurity products and services, including antivirus software, endpoint security, identity protection and online privacy for consumers and enterprises.

[13][14] In 2018, Bitdefender joined the Cybersecurity Tech Accord,[15]and provided operational support to Europol's European Cybercrime Centre, helping shut down the Sipulimarket and Silkktie darknet markets.

[30][31] On March 20, 2010, computers running Bitdefender under 64-bit versions of Windows were affected by a malfunctioning update that classified every executable program as well as DLL files as infected.

[34] In 2020, hacker group DarkSide switched their main encryption ransomware product over to an "affiliate" model wherein other attackers could download and use their software in exchange for a portion of the profits.

Months later, Bitdefender publicly released a decryptor of their own development and issued a blog post describing the flaw, a move criticized in the MIT Technology Review.

Security researchers studying the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack in May 2021 criticized Bitdefender for using the bug as a brief burst of publicity, though they acknowledged that DarkSide would’ve eventually noticed and fixed the issue.

[35] Bitdefender defended their actions, saying they only wished to notify as many organizations as possible,[36] triggering a discussion among cybersecurity professionals about the pros and cons of publicly disclosing such vulnerabilities in malware.