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September 13, 2023

How Darktrace Stopped Akira Ransomware

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Sep 2023
Learn how Darktrace is uniquely placed to identify and contain the novel Akira ransomware strain, first observed in March 2023.

Introduction to Akira Ransomware

In the face of a seemingly never-ending production line of novel ransomware strains, security teams across the threat landscape are continuing to see a myriad of new variants and groups targeting their networks. Naturally, new strains and threat groups present unique challenges to organizations. The use of previously unseen tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) means that threat actors can often completely bypass traditional rule and signature-based security solutions, thus rendering an organization’s digital environment vulnerable to attack.

What is Akira Ransomware?

One such example of a novel ransomware family is Akira, which was first observed in the wild in March 2023. Much like many other strains, Akira is known to target corporate networks worldwide, encrypting sensitive files and demanding huge sums of money to retrieve the data and stop it from being posted online [1].

Key characteristics of Akira Ransomware

  • Targeted Attacks: Focuses on specific industries and organizations, often targeting those with valuable data.
  • Double Extortion Tactics: Employs double extortion by encrypting data and threatening to release it publicly if the ransom is not paid.
  • Advanced Encryption: Utilizes sophisticated encryption algorithms to ensure that data recovery is impossible without the decryption key.
  • Custom Ransom Notes: Delivers personalized ransom notes tailored to the victim, often containing detailed instructions and specific payment demands.
  • Stealth Techniques: Uses advanced evasion techniques to avoid detection by security tools and to remain undetected for extended periods.
  • Fast Encryption Process: Known for its rapid encryption process, minimizing the time window for detection and response by the victim.
  • Frequent Updates: Regularly updates its malware to bypass the latest security defenses and to improve its effectiveness.
  • Professional Communication: Maintains professional and often polite communication with victims to facilitate ransom payments and decryption.

Darktrace AI capabilities detect Akira Ransomware

In late May 2023, Darktrace observed multiple instances of Akira ransomware affecting networks across its customer base. Thanks to its anomaly-based approach to threat detection, Darktrace successfully identified the novel ransomware attacks and provided full visibility over the cyber kill chain, from the initial compromise to the eventual file encryptions and ransom notes. In cases where Darktrace was enabled in autonomous response mode, these attacks were mitigated the early stages of the attack, thus minimizing any disruption or damage to customer networks.

Initial access and privileged escalation

Methods used by Akira ransomware for privileged escalation

The Akira ransomware group typically uses spear-phishing campaigns containing malicious downloads or links as their primary initial access vector; however, they have also been known to use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) brute-force attacks to access target networks [2].

While Darktrace did observe the early access activities that are detailed below, it is very likely that the actual initial intrusion happened prior to this, through targeted phishing attacks that fell outside of Darktrace’s purview. The first indicators of compromise (IoCs) that Darktrace observed on customer networks affected by Darktrace were typically unusual RDP sessions, and the use of compromised administrative credentials.

Darktrace detection of initial access and priviledged escalation

On one Darktrace customer’s network (customer A), Darktrace identified a highly privileged credential being used for the first time on an internal server on May 21, 2023. Around a week later, this server was observed establishing RDP connections with multiple internal destination devices via port 3389. Further investigation carried out by the customer revealed that this credential had indeed been compromised. On May 30, Darktrace detected another device scanning internal devices and repeatedly failing to authenticate via Kerberos.

As the customer had integrated Darktrace with Microsoft Defender, their security team received additional cyber threat intelligence from Microsoft which, coupled with the anomaly alerts provided by Darktrace, helped to further contextualize these anomalous events. One specific detail gleaned from this integration was that the anomalous scanning activity and failed authentication attempts were carried out using the compromised administrative credentials mentioned earlier.

By integrating Microsoft Defender with Darktrace, customers can efficiently close security gaps across their digital infrastructure. While Darktrace understands customer environments and provides valuable network-level insights, by integrating with Microsoft Defender, customers can further enrich these insights with endpoint-specific information and activity.

In another customer’s network (customer B), Darktrace detected a device, later observed writing a ransom note, receiving an unusual RDP connection from another internal device. The RDP cookie used during this activity was an administrative RDP cookie that appeared to have been compromised. This device was also observed making multiple connections to the domain, api.playanext[.]com, and using the user agent , AnyDesk/7.1.11, indicating the use of the AnyDesk remote desktop service.

Although this external domain does not appear directly related to Akira ransomware, open-source intelligence (OSINT) found associations with multiple malicious files, and it appeared to be associated with the AnyDesk user agent, AnyDesk/6.0.1 [3]. The connections to this endpoint likely represented the malicious use of AnyDesk to remotely control the customer’s device, rather than Akira command-and-control (C2) infrastructure or payloads. Alternatively, it could be indicative of a spoofing attempt in which the threat actor is attempting to masquerade as legitimate remote desktop service to remain undetected by security tools.

Around the same time, Darktrace observed many devices on customer B’s network making anomalous internal RDP connections and authenticating via Kerberos, NTLM, or SMB using the same administrative credential. These devices were later confirmed to be affected by Akira Ransomware.

Figure 1 shows how Darktrace detected one of those internal devices failing to login via SMB multiple times with a certain credential (indication of a possible SMB/NTLM brute force), before successfully accessing other internal devices via SMB, NTLM and RDP using the likely compromised administrative credential mentioned earlier.

Figure 1: Model Breach Event Log indicating unusual SMB, NTLM and RDP activity with different credentials detected which led to the Darktrace model breaches, "Unusual Admin RDP Session” and “Successful Admin Brute-Force Activity”.

Darktrace models observed for initial access and privilege escalation:

  • Device / Anomalous RDP Followed By Multiple Model Breaches
  • Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin RDP Session
  • New Admin Credentials on Server
  • Possible SMB/NTLM Brute Force Indicator
  • Unusual Activity / Successful Admin Brute-Force Activity

Internal Reconnaissance and Lateral Movement

The next step Darktrace observed during Akira Ransomware attacks across the customer was internal reconnaissance and lateral movement.

How Akira Ransomware conducts internal reconnaissance

In another customer’s environment (customer C), after authenticating via NTLM using a compromised credential, a domain controller was observed accessing a large amount of SMB shares it had never previously accessed. Darktrace understood that this SMB activity represented a deviation in the device’s expected behavior and recognized that it could be indicative of SMB enumeration. Darktrace observed the device making at least 196 connections to 34 unique internal IPs via port 445. SMB actions read, write, and delete were observed during those connections. This domain controller was also one of many devices on the customer’s network that was received incoming connections from an external endpoint over port 3389 using the RDP protocol, indicating that the devices were likely being remotely controlled from outside the network. While there were no direct OSINT links with this endpoint and Akira ransomware, the domain controller in question was later confirmed to be compromised and played a key role in this phase of the attack.

Moreover, this represents the second IoC that Darktrace observed that had no obvious connection to Akira, likely indicating that Akira actors are establishing entirely new infrastructure to carry out their attacks, or even utilizing newly compromised legitimate infrastructure. As Darktrace adopts an anomaly-based approach to threat detection, it can recognize suspicious activity indicative of an emerging ransomware attack based on its unusualness, rather than having to rely on previously observed IoCs and lists of ‘known-bads’.

Darktrace further observed a flurry of activity related to lateral movement around this time, primarily via SMB writes of suspicious files to other internal destinations. One particular device on customer C’s network was detected transferring multiple executable (.exe) and script files to other internal devices via SMB.

Darktrace recognized that these transfers represented a deviation from the device’s normal SMB activity and may have indicated threat actors were attempting to compromise additional devices via the transfer of malicious software.

Figure 2: Advanced Search results showing 20 files associated with suspicious SMB write activity, amongst them executable files and dynamic link libraries (DLLs).

Darktrace DETECT models observed for internal reconnaissance and lateral movement:

  • Device / RDP Scan
  • Anomalous Connection / SMB Enumeration
  • Anomalous Connection / Possible Share Enumeration Activity
  • Scanning of Multiple Devices (Cyber AI Analyst Incident)
  • Device / Possible SMB/NTLM Reconnaissance
  • Compliance / Incoming Remote Desktop
  • Compliance / Outgoing NTLM Request from DC
  • Unusual Activity / Internal Data Transfer
  • Security Integration / Lateral Movement and Integration Detection
  • Device / Anomalous SMB Followed By Multiple Model Breaches

Ransomware deployment

In the final phase of Akira ransomware attacks detected on Darktrace customer networks, Darktrace identified the file extension “.akira” being added after encryption to a variety of files on the affected network shares, as well as a ransom note titled “akira_readme.txt” being dropped on affected devices.

On customer A’s network, after nearly 9,000 login failures and 2,000 internal connection attempts indicative of scanning activity, one device was detected transferring suspicious files over SMB to other internal devices. The device was then observed connecting to another internal device via SMB and continuing suspicious file activity, such as appending files on network shares with the “.akira” extension, and performing suspicious writes to SMB shares on other internal devices.

Darktrace’s autonomous threat investigator, Cyber AI Analyst™, was able to analyze the multiple events related to this encryption activity and collate them into one AI Analyst incident, presenting a detailed and comprehensive summary of the entire incident within 10 minutes of Darktrace’s initial detection. Rather than simply viewing individual breaches as standalone activity, AI Analyst can identify the individual steps of an ongoing attack to provide complete visibility over emerging compromises and their kill chains. Not only does this bolster the network’s defenses, but the autonomous investigations carried out by AI Analyst also help to save the security team’s time and resources in triaging and monitoring ongoing incidents.

Figure 3: Darktrace Cyber AI Analyst incident correlated multiple model breaches together to show Akira ransomware encryption activity.

In addition to analyzing and compiling Darktrace model breaches, AI Analyst also leveraged the host-level insights provided by Microsoft Defender to enrich its investigation into the encryption event. By using the Security Integration model breaches, AI Analyst can retrieve timestamp and device details from a Defender alert and further investigate any unusual activity surrounding the alert to present a full picture of the suspicious activity.

In customer B’s environment, following the unusual RDP sessions and rare external connections using the AnyDesk user agent, an affected device was later observed writing around 2,000 files named "akira_readme.txt" to multiple internal SMB shares. This represented the malicious actor dropping ransom notes, containing the demands and extortion attempts of the actors.

Figure 4: Model Breach Event Log indicating the ransom note detected on May 12, 2023, which led to the Darktrace DETECT model breach, Anomalous Server Activity / Write to Network Accessible WebRoot.
Figure 5: Packet Capture (PCAP) demonstrating the Akira ransom note captured from the connection details seen in Figure 4.

As a result of this ongoing activity, an Enhanced Monitoring model breach, a high-fidelity detection model type that detects activities that are more likely to be indicative of compromise, was escalated to Darktrace’s Security Operations Center (SOC) who, in turn were able to further investigate and triage this ransomware activity. Customers who have subscribed to Darktrace’s Proactive Threat Notification (PTN) service would receive an alert from the SOC team, advising urgent follow up action.

Darktrace detection models observed during ransomware deployment:

  • Security Integration / Integration Ransomware Incident
  • Security Integration / High Severity Integration Detection
  • Security Integration / Integration Ransomware Detected
  • Device / Suspicious File Writes to Multiple Hidden SMB Shares
  • Compliance / SMB Drive Write
  • Compromise / Ransomware / Suspicious SMB Activity (Proactive Threat Notification Alerted by the Darktrace SOC)
  • Anomalous File / Internal / Additional Extension Appended to SMB File
  • Anomalous File / Internal / Unusual SMB Script Write
  • Compromise / Ransomware / Ransom or Offensive Words Written to SMB
  • Anomalous Server Activity /Write to Network Accessible WebRoot
  • Anomalous Server Activity /Write to Network Accessible WebRoot

Darktrace autonomous response neutralizes Akira Ransomware

When Darktrace is configured in autonomous response mode, it is able to follow up successful threat identifications with instant autonomous actions that stop malicious actors in their tracks and prevent them from achieving their end goals.

In the examples of Darktrace customers affected by Akira Ransomware outlined above, only customer A had autonomous response mode enabled during their ransomware attack. The autonomous response capability of Darktrace helped the customer to minimize disruption to the business through multiple targeted actions on devices affected by ransomware.

One action carried out by Darktrace's Autonomous Respose was to block all on-going traffic from affected devices. In doing so, Darktrace effectively shuts down communications between devices affected by Akira and the malicious infrastructure used by threat actors, preventing the spread of data on the client network or threat actor payloads.

Another crucial response action applied on this customer’s network was combat Akira was to “Enforce a Pattern of Life” on affected devices. This action is designed to prevent devices from performing any activity that would constitute a deviation from their expected behavior, while allowing them to continue their ‘usual’ business operations without causing any disruption.

While the initial intrusion of the attack on customer A’s network likely fell outside of the scope of Darktrace’s visibility, Darktrace was able to minimize the disruption caused by Akira, containing the ransomware and allowing the customer to further investigate and remediate.

Darktrace Autonomous Response model breaches:

  • Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Ransomware Block
  • Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious Activity Block
  • Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Enhanced Monitoring from Server Block
  • Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious Activity Block
  • Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block
  • Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena Unusual Privileged User Activities Block
  • Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Breaches Over Time Block
  • Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Significant Anomaly from Client Block
  • Antigena / Network /Insider Threat /Antigena SMB Enumeration Block

Conclusion

The impact of cyber attacks

Novel ransomware strains like Akira Ransomware present a significant challenge to security teams across the globe due to the constant evolution of attack methods and tactics, making it huge a challenge for security teams to stay up to date with the most current threat intelligence.  

Therefore, it is paramount for organizations to adopt a technology designed around an intelligent decision maker able to identify unusual activity that could be indicative of a ransomware attack without depending solely on rules, signatures, or statistic lists of malicious IoCs.

Importance of AI-powered cybersecurity solutions

Darktrace identified Akira ransomware at every stage of the attack’s kill chain on multiple customer networks, even when threat actors were utilizing seemingly legitimate services (or spoofed versions of them) to carry out malicious activity. While this may have gone unnoticed by traditional security tools, Darktrace’s anomaly-based detection enabled it to recognize malicious activity for what it was. When enabled in autonomous response mode, Darktrace is able to follow up initial detections with machine-speed preventative actions to stop the spread of ransomware and minimize the damage caused to customer networks.  

There is no silver bullet to defend against novel cyber-attacks, however Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection and autonomous response capabilities are uniquely placed to detect and respond to cyber disruption without latency.

Credit to: Manoel Kadja, Cyber Analyst, Nahisha Nobregas, SOC Analyst.

Appendices

IOC - Type - Description/Confidence

202.175.136[.]197 - External destination IP -Incoming RDP Connection

api.playanext[.]com - External hostname - Possible RDP Host

.akira - File Extension - Akira Ransomware Extension

akira_readme.txt - Text File - Akira Ransom Note

AnyDesk/7.1.11 - User Agent -AnyDesk User Agent

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic & Technique

DISCOVERY

T1083 - File and Directory Discovery

T1046 - Network Service Scanning

T1135 - Network Share Discovery

RECONNAISSANCE

T1595.002 - Vulnerability Scanning

CREDENTIAL ACCESS, COLLECTION

T1557.001 - LLMNR/NBT-NS Poisoning and SMB Relay

DEFENSE EVASION, LATERAL MOVEMENT

T1550.002 - Pass the Hash

DEFENSE EVASION, PERSISTENCE, PRIVILEGE ESCALATION, INITIAL ACCESS

T1078 - Valid Accounts

DEFENSE EVASION

T1006 - Direct Volume Access

LATERAL MOVEMENT

T1563.002 - RDP Hijacking

T1021.001 - Remote Desktop Protocol

T1080 - Taint Shared Content

T1021.002 - SMB/Windows Admin Shares

INITIAL ACCESS

T1190 - Exploit Public-Facing Application

T1199 - Trusted Relationship

PERSISTENCE, INITIAL ACCESS

T1133 - External Remote Services

PERSISTENCE

T1505.003 - Web Shell

IMPACT

T1486 - Data Encrypted for Impact

References

[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/meet-akira-a-new-ransomware-operation-targeting-the-enterprise/

[2] https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/cert-in-warns-against-akira-ransomware/#:~:text=Spread%20Methods%3A%20Akira%20ransomware%20is,Desktop%20connections%20to%20infiltrate%20systems

[3] https://hybrid-analysis.com/sample/0ee9baef94c80647eed30fa463447f000ec1f50a49eecfb71df277a2ca1fe4db?environmentId=100

Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
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Manoel Kadja
Cyber Analyst
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Company Shuts Down Cyber-attacks with “Flawless” Detection and Response from Darktrace

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Growing pains: Balancing efficiency with risk  

This organization has recently scaled its operations, and numerous acquisitions have significantly boosted the organization’s capabilities and growth. However, this also creates work and high expectations for the organization’s IT and security teams. Within 12 months of an acquisition, the teams must fully integrate each new business onto the company’s platform. “A huge piece of that integration plan is rolling out our security controls,” said the CISO. “While our goal is to connect those facilities up as quickly as possible to drive efficiency, we also need to implement the proper security controls to protect the enterprise.”

Gap beyond the perimeter  

The organization had established strong security measures to safeguard its perimeter; however, the CISO identified a critical gap in real-time network monitoring. If the perimeter were breached, threats were only discovered after an endpoint was compromised and the issue was manually reported.

As digital transformation progresses, the need to adopt advanced technologies is becoming essential, particularly as organizations begin to open up operational environments to greater connectivity. Many processes still rely on traditional methods, and integrating innovative solutions could drive significant improvements in efficiency and productivity. “We’re committed to adopting cutting-edge technologies,” the CISO explained. “But we understood that without more robust network security controls, opening up our operational environments would expose us to heightened risks, including advanced threats like ransomware.”

Building a layered, proactive security strategy with Darktrace  

To close the gap beyond the perimeter, the company embarked on a free trial with Darktrace. The CISO recalls: “The trials were fantastic. It was obvious that Darktrace was exactly what we needed. The Darktrace team was also very knowledgeable and helpful throughout the process, which was impressive.”  

Today, the organization is using a combination of Darktrace solutions for its layered security approach, including:

Detecting unusual behavior with AI  

Darktrace’s use of machine learning and Self-Learning AI is one of the reasons the company chose Darktrace. Instead of teaching an AI system what an ‘attack’ looks like, training it on large data lakes of thousands of organizations’ data, Darktrace AI learns from the company’s own unique data and user activity to learn and create baseline models of what ‘normal’ looks like for their business.

Darktrace can then detect subtle deviations and unusual activity that signals a possible threat. “That fascinated us because what it really means is this technology doesn’t need to know about every single threat because the threat itself isn’t important, it’s the behavior of the activity that’s important. That capability is unique when it when it comes to threat detection,” said the CISO.

Identifying and mitigating high-impact attack paths

The security team appreciated that with Darktrace they could take a more proactive approach to security by exposing high-risk attack paths through modeling and AI risk assessments. Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management gives them visibility into vulnerable entry points and assets, identifies active risks, and prioritizes the most important security issues to be addressed.

“Specific users and assets within our business have a higher risk of being targeted by a cyber-attack, for example our executives,” said the CISO. “With Darktrace, we get an adversarial view of our risk. We can see the attack path around those potential targets and proactively take measures to mitigate that vulnerability and prevent an attack.”

Driving up productivity while putting the brakes on cyber-attacks  

The security team collaborated with Darktrace to fine tune the models that really fit their business. With Darktrace now automating most of their threat detection and response efforts, productivity has soared, the security team is now focused on delivering greater value to the business and, most importantly, Darktrace proved it could quickly detect and shut down a major cyber-attack–and do so without impacting business operations.

Fueling team productivity with automation and AI

Prior to using Darktrace, the security team had little visibility into potential risks beyond the perimeter. Today, the team has full control and visibility over the network. “My team is now spending 80-90% of their time doing proactive work because Darktrace is managing the vast majority of our detect and response needs. The team really has faith in the Darktrace system,” said the CISO.  

With less time spent on low-level manual tasks, the security team can now focus on higher priority initiatives. For example, they have expanded their internal vulnerability assessments across the entire group. The team couldn’t focus on this additional audit and vulnerability management work if Darktrace wasn’t taking care of most of their security monitoring. “Darktrace has allowed us to move on to these additional kinds of governance projects that we otherwise would have to hire an army of staff to get through”.

Stopping email threats in their tracks

Using Darktrace / EMAIL, the company has identified and blocked a significant percentage of emails that were making it past their native email filters. “Darktrace is especially good at detecting impersonation emails, and we really appreciate its ability to automatically remove suspicious emails directly from a user’s inbox. It adds an extra level of confidence,” said the CISO.

Self-Learning AI understands anomalies within unique communication patterns to stop known and unknown threats. For example, when an employee sent an email to a brand new domain, Darktrace identified the behavior as unusual and inconsistent with baseline models and blocked the email.

Darktrace passes the biggest test of all

In 2024, the company experienced the value of the security system firsthand when attackers exploited a vulnerability in a third-party remote support solution that they was using. This solution provided remote access and tech support capabilities. If successful, the attackers could have infiltrated high-value end points and created their own administrative user, giving them full control over the server.

“We first became aware of the attack when Darktrace notified us of unusual behavior coming from the remote support server,” said the CISO. The attackers were attempting to put backdoors onto the service with the intent of selling access to the highest bidder who would then install ransomware on their servers. It all happened very quickly, as the attackers tried to connect to the internal network and other servers, while also firing off a host of other actions, like PowerShell commands, to escalate their privileges.  

“Darktrace worked flawlessly. There was no chance that ransomware was ever going to come in,” the CISO said. “Even though there was no signature to really look at, Darktrace realized this was not normal behavior for this server, shutting down connections and doing everything it could do to stop the attack.” Within eight hours, the security team identified and stopped the attack, severed its connection to the third-party solution, and completed additional analysis and clean-up. “In addition to our own investigation, third parties like our external SOC and legal department also confirmed that Darktrace performed as expected. We were able to report back to the executive team that there was zero risk that any data or systems were compromised.”

Post-attack, there was no need to make any changes to Darktrace. The team consistently reviews its models and baselines, often collaborating with Darktrace to make adjustments when needed to continuously improve performance. “Because of this relationship and constant engagement with Darktrace’s technical teams, we didn't have to go back and ask: ‘why wasn’t this updated’ or ‘why didn’t this model work.’ The models worked.”

His advice to other organizations facing similar challenges? First, focus on updating, patching, and vulnerability management, and act quickly when vulnerabilities are identified. His second piece of advice: “have an automated detection system like Darktrace in place so you can respond at the speed that these attacks evolve. Humans can no longer keep up with a scripted attack as it moves around and tries to compromise items on your network. You need the right technology to fight these types of attacks.”

Dynamic capabilities for a dynamic future

Real-time playbooks

With a proactive, enterprise-wide security strategy in place, the CISO now has the time to think about future projects and innovations. He’s particularly interested in the idea of generating playbooks on the fly in response to real-time events. He believes cyber-attacks are far too varied for a static playbook to be useful; when an attack strikes, teams need to quickly understand exactly what’s in front of them and how to shut it down. “This fits into our future cybersecurity strategy, and Darktrace is the only company I’ve seen talking about building playbooks dynamically. This kind of technology would really help bring our cybersecurity strategy full circle.”

“Darktrace ’s technology, experience and expertise is helping us staying ahead of cyber-attacks, minimizing our risk and driving greater productivity for our team,” said the CISO. In collaboration with Darktrace, the team have created a security foundation that is both powerful and agile. “While Darktrace is detecting and responding to attacks targeting our business today, we know that it’s always learning, adapting and scaling to ensure we’re protected tomorrow. That gives me peace of mind and the freedom to focus on our future.”

Download the Darktrace / NETWORK Solution Brief

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Protect in real time: Defend against known and emerging threats without relying on historical data or external intelligence.

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Darktrace is Positioned as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Network Detection and Response 2024 Vendor Assessment

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Darktrace is pleased to announce that we have been positioned as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Network Detection and Response 2024 Vendor Assessment. We believe this further highlights Darktrace’s position as a pioneer in the NDR market and follows similar recognition from KuppingerCole, who recently named Darktrace as an Overall Leader, Product Leader, Market Leader and Innovation Leader in the KuppingerCole Leadership Compass: Network Detection and Response (2024).

Network Detection and Response (NDR) solutions are uniquely positioned to provide visibility over the core hub of a business and employee activity, analyzing North-South and East-West traffic to identify threats across the modern network. NDR provides a rich and true source of anomalies and goes beyond process level data that is relied on by Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) agents that do not provide network level visibility and can be misconfigured at any time.1

Metadata from network traffic can be used to detect a variety of different threats based on events such as anomalous port usage, unusual upload/download activity, impossible travel and many other activities. This has been accelerated by the increased usage of user behavioral analytics (UBA) in network security, which establishes statistical baselines about network entities and highlights deviations from expected activity.1

Darktrace is recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape due to our leadership in the market and our pioneering leadership in AI over the past decade, alongside a variety of other unique differentiators and innovations in the NDR industry.

Darktrace / NETWORK™ delivers full visibility, real time threat detection and Autonomous Response capabilities across an organization’s on-premises, cloud, hybrid and virtual environments, including remote worker endpoints.

Unique Approach to AI

Most NDR vendors and network security tools such as IDS/IPS rely on detecting known attacks with historical data and supervised machine learning, leaving organizations blind and vulnerable to novel threats such as zero-days, variants of known attacks, supply chain attacks and insider threats.

These vendors also tend to apply AI models that are trained globally, and are not unique to each organization’s environment, which creates a high number of false positives and alerts that ultimately lack business context.

The IDC MarketScape recognizes that Darktrace takes a differentiated approach in the market with regards to delivering network detection and response capabilities, noting; “Darktrace is unique in that it does not rely on rules and signatures but rather learns what constitutes as normal for an organization and generates alerts when there is a deviation.”1

Darktrace / NETWORK achieves this through the use of Self-Learning AI and unsupervised machine learning to understand what is normal network behavior, continuously analyzing, mapping and modeling every connection to create a full picture of devices, identities, connections and potential attack paths. Darktrace Self-Learning AI autonomously optimizes itself to cut through the noise and quickly surface genuine, prioritized network security incidents – significantly reducing false positives and removing the hassle of needing to continually tuning alerts manually.

Darktrace’s unique approach to AI also extends to the investigation and triage of network alerts with Cyber AI Analyst. Unlike a chat or prompt based LLM, Cyber AI Analyst investigates all relevant alerts in an environment, including third party alerts, autonomously forming hypotheses and reaching conclusions just like a human analyst would, accelerating SOC Level 2 analyses of incidents by 10x. Cyber AI Analyst also typically providing SOC teams with up to 50,000 additional hours annually of Level 2 analysis producing high level alerts and written reporting, transforming security operations.2

Darktrace also uses its deep understanding of what is normal for a network to identify suspicious behavior, leveraging Autonomous Response capabilities to shut down both known and novel threats in real time, taking targeted actions without disrupting business operations. Darktrace / NETWORK is the only NDR solution that can autonomously enforce a pattern of life based on what is normal for a standalone device or group of peers, rapidly containing and disarming threats based on the overall context of the environment and a granular understanding of what is normal for a device or user – instead of relying on historical attack data.

Continued NDR Market Leadership

Darktrace has been recognized as a Leader in the NDR market, and the IDC MarketScape listed a variety of strengths:

  • Darktrace achieves roughly one-fifth of all global NDR revenue. This is important because other IT and cybersecurity solutions providers necessarily want to have integration with Darktrace.
  • The AI algorithms that Darktrace uses for NDR have had 10 years of deployments, tuning, and learning to draw from.
  • Darktrace is available as a SaaS, as an enterprise license, and as physical, hybrid, or virtual appliances. Darktrace also offers an endpoint agent and visibility into VPN and ZTNA.
  • Darktrace integrates with 30+ different interfaces including SIEM, SOAR, XDR platforms, IT ticketing solutions, and their own dashboards. The Darktrace Threat Visualizer highlights events and incidents from the entire deployment including cloud, apps, email, endpoint, zero trust, network, and OT.
  • Darktrace / NETWORK charts the progress that the SOC is making over time with key metrics such as MTTD/MTTR, alerts generated and processed, and other criteria.
  • Darktrace reported coverage of 14 MITRE ATT&CK categories, 158 techniques, and 184 subtechniques

Proactive Network Resilience

The IDC MarketScape notes, “Ultimately, NDR shines as a standalone detection and response technology but is especially powerful when combined with other platforms. NDR in combination with other control points such as endpoint, data, identity, and application provides the proper context when winnowing alerts and trying to uncover a single source of truth.” . Darktrace comprehensively addresses this as part of the ActiveAI Security Platform, by combining network alerts with data from / EMAIL, / IDENTITY, / ENDPOINT, / CLOUD and / OT, providing deeper contextual analysis for each network alert and automatically enriching investigations.

Darktrace also goes beyond NDR solutions with capabilities that are closely linked to our NDR offering, helping clients to achieve and maintain a state of proactive network resilience:

  • Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management – look beyond just CVE risks to discover, prioritize and validate risks by business impact and how to address them early, reducing the number of real threats that security teams need to handle.
  • Darktrace / Incident Readiness & Recovery – lets teams respond in the best way to each incident and proactively test their familiarity and effectiveness of IR workflows with sophisticated incident simulations based on their own analysts and assets.

Together, these solutions allow Darktrace / NETWORK to go beyond the traditional approach to NDR and shift teams to a more hardened and proactive stance.

Protecting Clients with Continued Innovation

Darktrace invests heavily in Research and Development to continue providing customers with market-leading NDR capabilities and innovations, which was reflected in our position in the Leader category of the MarketScape report for both capabilities and strategy. We are led by the needs and challenges of our customers, which serve as the driving force behind our continued innovation and leadership in the NDR market. The IDC MarketScape report underlines this approach with the following feedback presented by Darktrace customers:

“A customer intimated that 99% of their detections were OOTB with little need to tune or define parameters.”
“A customer reported that it had early warnings for adversarial tactics such as suspicious SMB scanning, suspicious remote execution, remote desktop protocol (RDP) scanning, data exfiltration, C2C, LDAP query, and suspicious Kerberos activity.”
“The client could use Regex to determine if suspicious behavior was found elsewhere on the network.”

Thousands of customers around the world across all industries and sectors rely on Darktrace / NETWORK to protect against known and novel threats. From the latest vulnerabilities in network hardware to sophisticated new strains of ransomware and everything in-between, Darktrace helps clients detect and respond to all types of threats affecting their networks and avoid business disruption, even from the latest attacks.

Find out more about the unique capabilities of Darktrace / NETWORK and our application of AI in network security in the IDC MarketScape excerpt.

References

  1. IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Network Detection and Response 2024 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US51752324, November 2024)
  2. Darktrace Cyber AI Analyst Customer Fleet Data
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About the author
Mikey Anderson
Product Manager, Network Detection & Response
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