March 7, 2025

Darktrace's Early Detection of the Latest Ivanti Exploits

In January 2025, Ivanti disclosed two critical vulnerabilities affecting their products. Darktrace detected exploitation of these vulnerabilities as early as December 2024.

Written by

Hugh Turnbull

Cyber Analyst

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.

Written by

Hugh Turnbull

Cyber Analyst

Mar 2025

As reported in Darktrace’s 2024 Annual Threat Report, the exploitation of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) in edge infrastructure has consistently been a significant concern across the threat landscape, with internet-facing assets remaining highly attractive to various threat actors.

Back in January 2024, the Darktrace Threat Research team investigated a surge of malicious activity from zero-day vulnerabilities such as those at the time on Ivanti Connect Secure (CS) and Ivanti Policy Secure (PS) appliances. These vulnerabilities were disclosed by Ivanti in January 2024 as CVE-2023-46805 (Authentication bypass vulnerability) and CVE-2024-21887 (Command injection vulnerability), where these two together allowed for unauthenticated, remote code execution (RCE) on vulnerable Ivanti systems.

What are the latest vulnerabilities in Ivanti products?

In early January 2025, two new vulnerabilities were disclosed in Ivanti CS and PS, as well as their Zero Trust Access (ZTA) gateway products.

CVE-2025-0282: A stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability. Successful exploitation could lead to unauthenticated remote code execution, allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code on the affected system [1]
CVE-2025-0283: When combined with CVE-2025-0282, this vulnerability could allow a local authenticated attacker to escalate privileges, gaining higher-level access on the affected system [1]

Ivanti also released a statement noting they are currently not aware of any exploitation of CVE-2025-0283 at the time of disclosure [1].

Darktrace coverage of Ivanti

The Darktrace Threat Research team investigated the new Ivanti vulnerabilities across their customer base and discovered suspicious activity on two customer networks. Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) potentially indicative of successful exploitation of CVE-2025-0282 were identified as early as December 2024, 11 days before they had been publicly disclosed by Ivanti.

Case 1: December 2024

Authentication with a Privileged Credential

Darktrace initially detected suspicious activity connected with the exploitation of CVE-2025-0282 on December 29, 2024, when a customer device was observed logging into the network via SMB using the credential “svc_negbackups”, before authenticating with the credential “svc_negba” via RDP.

This likely represented a threat actor attempting to identify vulnerabilities within the system or application and escalate their privileges from a basic user account to a more privileged one. Darktrace / NETWORK recognized that the credential “svc_negbackups” was new for this device and therefore deemed it suspicious.

Figure 1: Darktrace / NETWORK’s detection of the unusual use of a new credential.

Likely Malicious File Download

Shortly after authentication with the privileged credential, Darktrace observed the device performing an SMB write to the C$ share, where a likely malicious executable file, ‘DeElevate64.exe’ was detected. While this is a legitimate Windows file, it can be abused by malicious actors for Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) sideloading, where malicious files are transferred onto other devices before executing malware. There have been external reports indicating that threat actors have utilized this technique when exploiting the Ivanti vulnerabilities [2].

Figure 2: Darktrace’s detection the SMB write of the likely malicious file ‘DeElevate64.exe’ on December 29, 2024.

Shortly after, a high volume of SMB login failures using the credential “svc_counteract-ext” was observed, suggesting potential brute forcing activity. The suspicious nature of this activity triggered an Enhanced Monitoring model alert that was escalated to Darktrace’s Security Operations Center (SOC) for further investigation and prompt notification, as the customer was subscribed to the Security Operations Support service. Enhanced Monitoring are high-fidelity models detect activities that are more likely to be indicative of compromise

Suspicious Scanning and Internal Reconnaissance

Darktrace then went on to observe the device carrying out network scanning activity as well as anomalous ITaskScheduler activity. Threat actors can exploit the task scheduler to facilitate the initial or recurring execution of malicious code by a trusted system process, often with elevated permissions. The same device was also seen carrying out uncommon WMI activity.

Figure 3: Darktrace’s detection of a suspicious network scan from the compromised device.

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Figure 4: Further information on the suspicious scanning activity retrieved by Cyber AI Analyst, including total number of connections and ports scanned.

Figure 5: Darktrace’s detection of a significant spike in WMI activity represented by DCE_RPC protocol request increases at the time, with little to no activity observed one week either side.

Case 2: January 2025

Suspicious File Downloads

On January 13, 2025, Darktrace began to observe activity related to the exploitation of CVE-2025-0282 on the network of another customer, with one in particular device attempting to download likely malicious files.

Firstly, Darktrace observed the device making a GET request for the file “DeElevator64.dll” hosted on the IP 104.238.130[.]185. The device proceeded to download another file, this time “‘DeElevate64.exe”. from the same IP. This was followed by the download of “DeElevator64.dll”, similar to the case observed in December 2024. External reporting indicates that this DLL has been used by actors exploiting CVE-2025-0282 to sideload backdoor into infected systems [2]

Figure 6: Darktrace’s detection of the download of the suspicious file “DeElevator64.dll” on January 13, 2025.

‍Suspicious Internal Activity

Just like the previous case, on January 15, the same device was observed making numerous internal connections consistent with network scanning activity, as well as DCE-RPC requests.

Just a few minutes later, Darktrace again detected the use of a new administrative credential, observing the following details:

‍domain=REDACTED hostname=DESKTOP-1JIMIV3 auth_successful=T result=success ntlm_version=2 .

The hostname observed by Darktrace, “DESKTOP-1JIMIV3,” has also been identified by other external vendors and was associated with a remote computer name seen accessing compromised accounts [2].

Darktrace also observed the device performing an SMB write of an additional file, “to.bat,” which may have represented another malicious file loaded from the DLL files that the device had downloaded earlier. It is possible this represented the threat actor attempting to deploy a remote scheduled task.

Figure 7: Darktrace’s detection of SMB Write of the suspicious file “to.bat”.

Further investigation revealed that the device was likely a Veeam server, with its MAC address indicating it was a VMware device. It also appeared that the Veeam server was capturing activities referenced from the hostname DESKTOP-1JIMIV3. This may be analogous to the remote computer name reported by external researchers as accessing accounts [2]. However, this activity might also suggest that while the same threat actor and tools could be involved, they may be targeting a different vulnerability in this instance.

Autonomous Response

In this case, the customer had Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability enabled on their network. As a result, Darktrace was able to contain the compromise and shut down any ongoing suspicious connectivity by blocking internal connections and enforcing a “pattern of life” on the affected device. This action allows a device to make its usual connections while blocking any that deviate from expected behavior. These mitigative actions by Darktrace ensured that the compromise was promptly halted, preventing any further damage to the customer’s environment.

Conclusion

If the previous blog in January 2024 was a stark reminder of the threat posed by malicious actors exploiting Internet-facing assets, the recent activities surrounding CVE-2025-0282 and CVE-2025-0283 emphasize this even further.

Based on the telemetry available to Darktrace, a wide range of malicious activities were identified, including the malicious use of administrative credentials, the download of suspicious files, and network scanning in the cases investigated .

These activities included the download of suspicious files such as “DeElevate64.exe” and “DeElevator64.dll” potentially used by attackers to sideload backdoors into infected systems. The suspicious hostname DESKTOP-1JIMIV3 was also observed and appears to be associated with a remote computer name seen accessing compromised accounts. These activities are far from exhaustive, and many more will undoubtedly be uncovered as threat actors evolve.

Fortunately, Darktrace was able to swiftly detect and respond to suspicious network activity linked to the latest Ivanti vulnerabilities, sometimes even before these vulnerabilities were publicly disclosed.

Credit to: Nahisha Nobregas, Senior Cyber Analyst, Emma Foulger, Principle Cyber Analyst, Ryan Trail, Analyst Content Lead and the Darktrace Threat Research Team

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections

Case 1

· Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin SMB Session

· Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location

· Anomalous File / Internal / Unusual SMB Script Write

· Anomalous File / Multiple EXE from Rare External Locations

· Anomalous File / Script from Rare External Location

· Compliance / SMB Drive Write

· Device / Multiple Lateral Movement Model Alerts

· Device / Network Range Scan

· Device / Network Scan

· Device / New or Uncommon WMI Activity

· Device / RDP Scan

· Device / Suspicious Network Scan Activity

· Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

· User / New Admin Credentials on Client

· User / New Admin Credentials on Server 

Case 2

· Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin SMB Session

· Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin RDP Session

· Compliance / SMB Drive Write

· Device / Multiple Lateral Movement Model Alerts

· Device / SMB Lateral Movement

· Device / Possible SMB/NTLM Brute Force

· Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

· Device / Network Scan

· Device / RDP Scan

· Device / Large Number of Model Alerts

· Device / Anomalous ITaskScheduler Activity

· Device / Suspicious Network Scan Activity

· Device / New or Uncommon WMI Activity

List of IoCs Possible IoCs:

· DeElevator64.dll

· deelevator64.dll

· DeElevate64.exe

· deelevator64.dll

· deelevate64.exe

· to.bat

Mid-high confidence IoCs:

- 104.238.130[.]185

- http://104.238.130[.]185/DeElevate64.exe

- http://104.238.130[.]185/DeElevator64.dll

- DESKTOP-1JIMIV3

References:

1. https://www.ivanti.com/blog/security-update-ivanti-connect-secure-policy-secure-and-neurons-for-zta-gateways

2. https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/threat-brief-ivanti-cve-2025-0282-cve-2025-0283/

3. https://www.proofpoint.com/uk/blog/identity-threat-defense/privilege-escalation-attack#:~:text=In%20this%20approach%2C%20attackers%20exploit,handing%20over%20their%20login%20credentials

Written by

Hugh Turnbull

Cyber Analyst

Inside the SOC

Written by

Hugh Turnbull

Cyber Analyst

Senior Product Marketing Manager, Email

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

Email

November 27, 2025

From Amazon to Louis Vuitton: How Darktrace Detects Black Friday Phishing Attacks

Why Black Friday Drives a Surge in Phishing Attacks

In recent years, Black Friday has shifted from a single day of online retail sales and discounts to an extended ‘Black Friday Week’, often preceded by weeks of online hype. During this period, consumers are inundated with promotional emails and marketing campaigns as legitimate retailers compete for attention.

Unsurprisingly, this surge in legitimate communications creates an ideal environment for threat actors to launch targeted phishing campaigns designed to mimic legitimate retail emails. These campaigns often employ social engineering techniques that exploit urgency, exclusivity, and consumer trust in well-known brands, tactics designed to entice recipients into opening emails and clicking on malicious links.

Additionally, given the seasonal nature of Black Friday and the ever-changing habits of consumers, attackers adopt new tactics and register fresh domains each year, rather than reusing domains previously flagged as spam or phishing endpoints. While this may pose a challenge for traditional email security tools, it presents no such difficulty for Darktrace / EMAIL and its anomaly-based approach.

In the days and weeks leading up to ‘Black Friday’, Darktrace observed a spike in sophisticated phishing campaigns targeting consumers, demonstrating how attackers combine phycological manipulation with technical evasion to bypass basic security checks during this high-traffic period. This blog showcases several notable examples of highly convincing phishing emails detected and contained by Darktrace / EMAIL in mid to late November 2025.

Darktrace’s Black Friday Detections

Brand Impersonation: Deal Watchdogs’ Amazon Deals

The impersonation major online retailers has become a common tactic in retail-focused attacks, none more so than Amazon, which ranked as the fourth most impersonated brand in 2024, only behind Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook [1]. Darktrace’s own research found Amazon to be the most mimicked brand, making up 80% of phishing attacks in its analysis of global consumer brands.

When faced with an email that appears to come from a trusted sender like Amazon, recipients are far more likely to engage, increasing the success rate of these phishing campaigns.

In one case observed on November 16, Darktrace detected an email with the subject line “NOW LIVE: Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals on Gadgets Under $60”. The email was sent to a customer by the sender ‘Deal Watchdogs’, in what appeared to be an attempt to masquerade as a legitimate discount-finding platform. No evidence indicated that the company was legitimate. In fact, the threat actor made no attempt to create a convincing name, and the domain appeared to be generated by a domain generation algorithm (DGA), as shown in Figure 2.

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Although the email was sent by ‘Deal Watchdogs’, it attempted to impersonate Amazon by featuring realistic branding, including the Amazon logo and a shade of orange similar to that used by them for the ‘CLICK HERE’ button and headline text.

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Figure 1: The contents of the email observed by Darktrace, featuring authentic-looking Amazon branding.

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Darktrace identified that the email, marked as urgent by the sender, contained a suspicious link to a Google storage endpoint (storage.googleapis[.]com), which had been hidden by the text “CLICK HERE”. If clicked, the link could have led to a credential harvester or served as a delivery vector for a malicious payload hosted on the Google storage platform.

Fortunately, Darktrace immediately identified the suspicious nature of this email and held it before delivery, preventing recipients from ever receiving or interacting with the malicious content.

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Figure 2: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of the malicious phishing email sent to a customer.

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Around the same time, Darktrace detected a similar email attempting to spoof Amazon on another customer’s network with the subject line “Our 10 Favorite Deals on Amazon That Started Today”, also sent by ‘Deal Watchdogs,’ suggesting a broader campaign.

Analysis revealed that this email originated from the domain petplatz[.]com, a fake marketing domain previously linked to spam activity according to open-source intelligence (OSINT) [2].

Brand Impersonation: Louis Vuitton

A few days later, on November 20, Darktrace / EMAIL detected a phishing email attempting to impersonate the luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton. At first glance, the email, sent under the name ‘Louis Vuitton’ and titled “[Black Friday 2025] Discover Your New Favorite Louis Vuitton Bag – Elegance Starts Here”, appeared to be a legitimate Black Friday promotion. However, Darktrace’s analysis uncovered several red flags indicating a elaborate brand impersonation attempt.

The email was not sent by Louis Vuitton but by rskkqxyu@bookaaatop[.]ru, a Russia-based domain never before observed on the customer’s network. Darktrace flagged this as suspicious, noting that .ru domains were highly unusual for this recipient’s environment, further reinforcing the likelihood of malicious intent. Subsequent analysis revealed that the domain had only recently registered and was flagged as malicious by multiple OSINT sources [3].

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Figure 3: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of the malicious email attempting to spoofLouis Vuitton, originating from a suspicious Russia-based domain.

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Darktrace further noted that the email contained a highly suspicious link hidden behind the text “View Collection” and “Unsubscribe,” ensuring that any interaction, whether visiting the supposed ‘handbag store’ or attempting to opt out of marketing emails, would direct recipients to the same endpoint. The link resolved to xn--80aaae9btead2a[.]xn--p1ai (топааабоок[.]рф), a domain confirmed as malicious by multiple OSINT sources [4]. At the time of analysis, the domain was inaccessible, likely due to takedown efforts or the short-lived nature of the campaign.

Darktrace / EMAIL blocked this email before it reached customer inboxes, preventing recipients from interacting with the malicious content and averting any disruption.

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Figure 4: The suspicious domain linked in the Louis Vuitton phishing email, now defunct.

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Too good to be true?

Aside from spoofing well-known brands, threat actors frequently lure consumers with “too good to be true” luxury offers, a trend Darktrace observed in multiple cases throughout November.

In one instance, Darktrace identified an email with the subject line “[Black Friday 2025] Luxury Watches Starting at $250.” Emails contained a malicious phishing link, hidden behind text like “Rolex Starting from $250”, “Shop Now”, and “Unsubscribe”.

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Figure 5: Example of a phishing email detected by Darktrace, containing malicious links concealed behind seemingly innocuous text.

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Similarly to the Louis Vuitton email campaign described above, this malicious link led to a .ru domain (hxxps://x.wwwtopsalebooks[.]ru/.../d65fg4er[.]html), which had been flagged as malicious by multiple sources [5].

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Figure 6: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of a malicious email promoting a fake luxury watch store, which was successfully held from recipient inboxes.

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If accessed, this domain would redirect users to luxy-rox[.]com, a recently created domain (15 days old at the time of writing) that has also been flagged as malicious by OSINT sources [6]. When visited, the redirect domain displayed a convincing storefront advertising high-end watches at heavily discounted prices.

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Figure 7: The fake storefront presented upon visiting the redirectdomain, luxy-rox[.]com.

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Although the true intent of this domain could not be confirmed, it was likely a scam site or a credential-harvesting operation, as users were required to create an account to complete a purchase. As of the time or writing, the domain in no longer accessible .

This email illustrates a layered evasion tactic: attackers employed multiple domains, rapid domain registration, and concealed redirects to bypass detection. By leveraging luxury branding and urgency-driven discounts, the campaign sought to exploit seasonal shopping behaviors and entice victims into clicking.

Staying Protected During Seasonal Retail Scams

The investigation into these Black Friday-themed phishing emails highlights a clear trend: attackers are exploiting seasonal shopping events with highly convincing campaigns. Common tactics observed include brand impersonation (Amazon, Louis Vuitton, luxury watch brands), urgency-driven subject lines, and hidden malicious links often hosted on newly registered domains or cloud services.

These campaigns frequently use redirect chains, short-lived infrastructure, and psychological hooks like exclusivity and luxury appeal to bypass user scepticism and security filters. Organizations should remain vigilant during retail-heavy periods, reinforcing user awareness training, link inspection practices, and anomaly-based detection to mitigate these evolving threats.

Credit to Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead) and Owen Finn (Cyber Analyst)

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Appendices

References

1. https://keepnetlabs.com/blog/top-5-most-spoofed-brands-in-2024

2. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/petplatz.com

3. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/bookaaatop.ru

4. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/xn--80aaae9btead2a.xn--p1ai

5. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/e2b868a74531cd779d8f4a0e1e610ec7f4efae7c29d8b8ab32c7a6740d770897?nocache=1

6. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/luxy-rox.com

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

IoC – Type – Description + Confidence

petplatz[.]com – Hostname – Spam domain

bookaaatop[.]ru – Hostname – Malicious Domain

xn--80aaae9btead2a[.]xn--p1ai (топааабоок[.]рф) – Hostname - Malicious Domain

hxxps://x.wwwtopsalebooks[.]ru/.../d65fg4er[.]html) – URL – Malicious Domain

luxy-rox[.]com – Hostname - Malicious Domain

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique – Sub-Technique

Initial Access - Phishing – (T1566)

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About the author

Ryan Traill

Analyst Content Lead

Blog

Email

November 27, 2025

Phishing attacks surge by 620% in the lead-up to Black Friday

Black Friday deals are rolling in, and so are the phishing scams

As the world gears up for Black Friday and the festive shopping season, inboxes flood with deals and delivery notifications, creating a perfect storm for phishing attackers to strike.

Contributing to the confusion, legitimate brands often rely on similar urgency cues, limited-time offers, and high-volume email campaigns used by scammers, blurring the lines between real deals and malicious lookalikes. While security teams remain extra vigilant during this period, the risk of phishing emails slipping in unnoticed remains high, as does the risk of individuals clicking to take advantage of holiday shopping offers.

Analysis conducted by Darktrace’s global analyst team revealed that phishing attacks taking advantage of Black Friday jumped by 620% in the weeks leading up to the holiday weekend, with the volume of phishing attacks expected to jump a further 20-30% during Black Friday week itself.

First observation: Brand impersonation

Brand impersonation was one of the techniques that stood out, with threat actors creating convincing emails – likely assisted by generative AI – purporting to be from household brands including special offers and promotions.

The week before Thanksgiving (15-21 November) saw 201% more phishing attempts mimicking US retailers than the same week in October, as attackers sought to profit off the back of the busy holiday shopping season. It’s not just about volume, either – attackers are spoofing brands people love to shop with during the holidays. Fake emails that look like they’re from well-known retailers like Macy’s, Walmart, and Target were up by 54% just across last week¹. Even so, Amazon is the most impersonated brand, making up 80% of phishing attempts in Darktrace’s analysis of global consumer brands like Apple, Alibaba and Netflix.

While major brands invest heavily in protecting their organizations and customers from cyber-attacks, impersonation is a complicated area as it falls outside of a brand’s legitimate infrastructure and security remit. Retail brands have a huge attack surface, creating plenty of vectors for impersonation, while fake domains, social profiles, and promotional messages can be created quickly and at scale.

Second observation: Fake marketing domains

One prominent Black Friday phishing campaign observed landing in many inboxes uses fake domains purporting to be from marketing sites, like “Pal.PetPlatz.com” and “Epicbrandmarketing.com”.

These emails tend to operate in one of two ways. Some contain “deals” for luxury items such as Rolex watches or Louis Vuitton handbags, designed to tempt readers into clicking. However, the majority are tied to a made-up brand called Deal Watchdogs, which promotes “can’t-miss” Amazon Black Friday offers – designed to lure readers into acting fast to secure legitimate time-sensitive deals. Any user who clicks a link is taken to a fake Amazon website where they are tricked into inputting sensitive data and payment details.

Third observation: The impact of generative AI

The biggest shift seen in phishing in recent years is how much more convincing scam emails are thanks to generative AI. 27% of phishing emails observed by Darktrace in 2024 contained over 1,000 characters², suggesting LLM use in their creation. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini lower the barrier to entry for cyber-criminals, allowing them to create phishing campaigns that humans find it difficult to spot.

Let’s take a look at a dummy email created by a member of our team without a technical background to illustrate how easy it is to spin up an email that looks and feels like a genuine Black Friday offer. With two prompts, generative AI created a convincing “sale” email that could easily pass as the real thing without requiring any technical skill.

A fake Black Friday deal email created using generative AI, with only two prompts. The image has been pixelated for marketing purposes.

Anyone can now create convincing brand spoofs, and they can do it at scale. That makes it even more important for email users to pause, check the sender, and think before they click.

Why phishing scams hurt consumers and brands

These spoofs don’t just drain shoppers’ bank accounts and grab their personal data. They erode trust, drive people away from real sites, and ultimately hurt brands’ sales. And the fakes keep getting sharper, more convincing, and harder to spot.

Though brands should implement email controls like DMARC to help reduce spoofing, they can’t stop attackers from registering new look-alike domains or using other channels. At the end of the day, human users remain vulnerable to well-crafted scams, particularly when the element of trust from a well-known brand is involved. And while brands can’t prevent all impersonation scams, the fallout can still erode consumer trust and damage their reputation.

In order to limit the impact of these scams, two things need to work together: better education so consumers know when to slow down and look twice, and email security (plus a DMARC solution and an attack surface management tool) that can adapt faster than the attackers – protecting both shoppers and the brands they love.

Tips to stay safe while Black Friday shopping online

On top of retailers implementing robust email security, there are some simple steps shoppers can take to stay safer while shopping this holiday season.

Check every website (twice). Scammers make tiny changes you can barely see. They’ll switch Walmart.com for Waimart.com and most people won’t notice. If something looks even slightly off, check the URL carefully and, if you’re unsure, search for reviews of that exact address.
Santa keeps the real gifts in the workshop. Don’t just click through from sales emails. Use them as a prompt to log in directly to the official app or site, where any genuine notifications will appear.
Look at the payment options. Real retailers usually offer a handful of recognizable ways to pay; if a site pushes only odd methods or upfront transfers, don’t use it.
Be skeptical of Christmas miracles. If a deal on a big-ticket item looks too good to be true, it usually is.
Leave the rushing to the elves. Countdown timers and “last chance” banners are designed to make you click before you think. Take a breath, double-check the sender and the site, and then decide whether to buy.

Email security you can trust this holiday season

The heightened holiday shopping season shines a spotlight on an uncomfortable reality: now that phishing emails are harder than ever to distinguish from legitimate brand communication, traditional spam filters and Secure Email Gateways struggle to keep up. In order to protect against communication-based attacks, organizations require email security that can evaluate the full context of an email – not just surface-level indicators – and stop malicious messages before they reach inboxes.

Darktrace / EMAIL uses Self-Learning AI to understand the behavior and patterns of every user, so it can detect the subtle inconsistencies that reveal a message isn’t genuine, from shifts in tone and writing style to unexpected links, unfamiliar senders, or off-brand visual cues. By identifying these anomalies automatically – and either holding them entirely, or neutralizing malicious elements – it removes the burden from employees to catch near-imperceptible errors and reinforces protection for the entire organization, from staff to customers to brand reputation.

Join our live broadcast on 9 December, where Darktrace will reveal new, industry-first innovations in email security keeping organizations safe this Christmas – from DMARC to DLP. Sign up to the live launch event now.

For a deeper dive into some specific Black Friday phishing campaigns surfaced by the Darktrace threat analysis team, read the follow-up blog here.

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A note on methodology

Insights derive from anonymous live data across 6,500 customers protected by Darktrace / EMAIL. Darktrace created models tracking verified phishing emails that:

Explicitly mentioned Black Friday
Impersonated US retailers popular during the holiday season (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Old Navy, 1800-Flowers)
Impersonated major global brands (Apple, eBay, Netflix, Alibaba and PayPal)

Tracking ran from October 1 to November 21.

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References

[1] Based on live tracking of phishing emails spoofing Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Old Navy, 1800-Flowers across email inboxes protected by Darktrace.  November 15 – November 21, 2025

[2] Based on analysis of 30.4 million phishing emails between December 21, 2023, and December 18, 2024. Darktrace Annual Threat Report 2024.

[related-resource]

About the author

Carlos Gray

Senior Product Marketing Manager, Email

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Darktrace's Early Detection of the Latest Ivanti Exploits

What are the latest vulnerabilities in Ivanti products?

Darktrace coverage of Ivanti

Case 1: December 2024

Authentication with a Privileged Credential

Likely Malicious File Download

Suspicious Scanning and Internal Reconnaissance

Case 2: January 2025

‍Suspicious Internal Activity

Conclusion

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections

List of IoCs Possible IoCs:

From Amazon to Louis Vuitton: How Darktrace Detects Black Friday Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks surge by 620% in the lead-up to Black Friday

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Blog

Email

November 27, 2025

From Amazon to Louis Vuitton: How Darktrace Detects Black Friday Phishing Attacks

Why Black Friday Drives a Surge in Phishing Attacks

Darktrace’s Black Friday Detections

Brand Impersonation: Deal Watchdogs’ Amazon Deals

Brand Impersonation: Louis Vuitton

Too good to be true?

Staying Protected During Seasonal Retail Scams

Appendices

Blog

Email

November 27, 2025

Phishing attacks surge by 620% in the lead-up to Black Friday

Black Friday deals are rolling in, and so are the phishing scams

First observation: Brand impersonation

Second observation: Fake marketing domains

Third observation: The impact of generative AI

Why phishing scams hurt consumers and brands

Tips to stay safe while Black Friday shopping online

Email security you can trust this holiday season

A note on methodology

References