July 26, 2024

Understanding the WarmCookie Backdoor Threat

Discover effective strategies for disarming the WarmCookie backdoor and securing your systems against this persistent threat.

Written by

Justin Torres

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

Justin Torres

Cyber Analyst

Jul 2024

What is WarmCookie malware?

WarmCookie, also known as BadSpace [2], is a two-stage backdoor tool that provides functionality for threat actors to retrieve victim information and launch additional payloads. The malware is primarily distributed via phishing campaigns according to multiple open-source intelligence (OSINT) providers.

Backdoor malware: A backdoor tool is a piece of software used by attackers to gain and maintain unauthorized access to a system. It bypasses standard authentication and security mechanisms, allowing the attacker to control the system remotely.

Two-stage backdoor malware: This means the backdoor operates in two distinct phases:

1. Initial Stage: The first stage involves the initial infection and establishment of a foothold within the victim's system. This stage is often designed to be small and stealthy to avoid detection.‍

2. Secondary Stage: Once the initial stage has successfully compromised the system, it retrieves or activates the second stage payload. This stage provides more advanced functionalities for the attacker, such as extensive data exfiltration, deeper system control, or the deployment of additional malicious payloads.

How does WarmCookie malware work?

Reported attack patterns include emails attempting to impersonate recruitment firms such as PageGroup, Michael Page, and Hays. These emails likely represented social engineering tactics, with attackers attempting to manipulate jobseekers into engaging with the emails and following malicious links embedded within [3].

This backdoor tool also adopts stealth and evasion tactics to avoid the detection of traditional security tools. Reported evasion tactics included custom string decryption algorithms, as well as dynamic API loading to prevent researchers from analyzing and identifying the core functionalities of WarmCookie [1].

Before this backdoor makes an outbound network request, it is known to capture details from the target machine, which can be used for fingerprinting and identification [1], this includes:

- Computer name

- Username

- DNS domain of the machine

- Volume serial number

WarmCookie samples investigated by external researchers were observed communicating over HTTP to a hardcoded IP address using a combination of RC4 and Base64 to protect its network traffic [1]. Ultimately, threat actors could use this backdoor to deploy further malicious payloads on targeted networks, such as ransomware.

Darktrace Coverage of WarmCookie

Between April and June 2024, Darktrace’s Threat Research team investigated suspicious activity across multiple customer networks indicating that threat actors were utilizing the WarmCookie backdoor tool. Observed cases across customer environments all included the download of unusual executable (.exe) files and suspicious outbound connectivity.

Affected devices were all observed making external HTTP requests to the German-based external IP, 185.49.69[.]41, and the URI, /data/2849d40ade47af8edfd4e08352dd2cc8.

The first investigated instance occurred between April 23 and April 24, when Darktrace detected a a series of unusual file download and outbound connectivity on a customer network, indicating successful WarmCookie exploitation. As mentioned by Elastic labs, "The PowerShell script abuses the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to download WarmCookie and run the DLL with the Start export" [1].

Less than a minute later, the same device was observed making HTTP requests to the rare external IP address: 185.49.69[.]41, which had never previously been observed on the network, for the URI /data/b834116823f01aeceed215e592dfcba7. The device then proceeded to download masqueraded executable file from this endpoint. Darktrace recognized that these connections to an unknown endpoint, coupled with the download of a masqueraded file, likely represented malicious activity.

Following this download, the device began beaconing back to the same IP, 185.49.69[.]41, with a large number of external connections observed over port 80. This beaconing related behavior could further indicate malicious software communicating with command-and-control (C2) servers.

Darktrace’s model alert coverage included the following details:

[Model Alert: Device / Unusual BITS Activity]

- Associated device type: desktop

- Time of alert: 2024-04-23T14:10:23 UTC

- ASN: AS28753 Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH

- User agent: Microsoft BITS/7.8

[Model Alert: Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location]

[Model Alert: Anomalous File / Masqueraded File Transfer]

- Associated device type: desktop

- Time of alert: 2024-04-23T14:11:18 UTC

- Destination IP: 185.49.69[.]41

- Destination port: 80

- Protocol: TCP

- Application protocol: HTTP

- ASN: AS28753 Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH

- User agent: Mozilla / 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1;.NET CLR 1.0.3705)

- Event details: File: http[:]//185.49.69[.]41/data/b834116823f01aeceed215e592dfcba7, total seen size: 144384B, direction: Incoming

- SHA1 file hash: 4ddf0d9c750bfeaebdacc14152319e21305443ff

- MD5 file hash: b09beb0b584deee198ecd66976e96237

[Model Alert: Compromise / Beaconing Activity To External Rare]

- Associated device type: desktop

- Time of alert: 2024-04-23T14:15:24 UTC

- Destination IP: 185.49.69[.]41

- Destination port: 80

- Protocol: TCP

- Application protocol: HTTP

- ASN: AS28753 Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH

- User agent: Mozilla / 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1;.NET CLR 1.0.3705)

Between May 7 and June 4, Darktrace identified a wide range of suspicious external connectivity on another customer’s environment. Darktrace’s Threat Research team further investigated this activity and assessed it was likely indicative of WarmCookie exploitation on customer devices.

Similar to the initial use case, BITS activity was observed on affected devices, which is utilized to download WarmCookie [1]. This initial behavior was observed with the device after triggering the model: Device / Unusual BITS Activity on May 7.

Just moments later, the same device was observed making HTTP requests to the aforementioned German IP address, 185.49.69[.]41 using the same URI /data/2849d40ade47af8edfd4e08352dd2cc8, before downloading a suspicious executable file.

Just like the first use case, this device followed up this suspicious download with a series of beaconing connections to 185.49.69[.]41, again with a large number of connections via port 80.

Similar outgoing connections to 185.49.69[.]41 and model alerts were observed on additional devices during the same timeframe, indicating that numerous customer devices had been compromised.

Darktrace’s model alert coverage included the following details:

[Model Alert: Device / Unusual BITS Activity]

- Associated device type: desktop

- Time of alert: 2024-05-07T09:03:23 UTC

- ASN: AS28753 Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH

- User agent: Microsoft BITS/7.8

[Model Alert: Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location]

[Model Alert: Anomalous File / Masqueraded File Transfer]

- Associated device type: desktop

- Time of alert: 2024-05-07T09:03:35 UTC

- Destination IP: 185.49.69[.]41

- Protocol: TCP

- ASN: AS28753 Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH

- Event details: File: http[:]//185.49.69[.]41/data/2849d40ade47af8edfd4e08352dd2cc8, total seen size: 72704B, direction: Incoming

- SHA1 file hash: 5b0a35c574ee40c4bccb9b0b942f9a9084216816

- MD5 file hash: aa9a73083184e1309431b3c7a3e44427

[Model Alert: Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname]

- Associated device type: desktop

- Time of alert: 2024-05-07T09:04:14 UTC

- Destination IP: 185.49.69[.]41

- Application protocol: HTTP

- URI: /data/2849d40ade47af8edfd4e08352dd2cc8

- User agent: Microsoft BITS/7.8

[Model Alert: Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to New Endpoint]

- Associated device type: desktop

- Time of alert: 2024-05-07T09:08:47 UTC

- Destination IP: 185.49.69[.]41

- Protocol: TCP

- Application protocol: HTTP

- ASN: AS28753 Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH

- URI: /

- User agent: Mozilla / 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1;.NET CLR 1.0.3705) \

Figure 1: Cyber AI Analyst Coverage Details around the external destination, ‘185.49.69[.]41’.

Figure 2: External Sites Summary verifying the geographical location of the external IP, 185.49.69[.]41’.

Fortunately, this particular customer was subscribed to Darktrace’s Proactive Threat Notification (PTN) service and the Darktrace Security Operation Center (SOC) promptly investigated the activity and alerted the customer. This allowed their security team to address the activity and begin their own remediation process.

In this instance, Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability was configured in Human Confirmation mode, meaning any mitigative actions required manual application by the customer’s security team.

Despite this, Darktrace recommended two actions to contain the activity: blocking connections to the suspicious IP address 185.49.69[.]41 and any IP addresses ending with '69[.]41', as well as the ‘Enforce Pattern of Life’ action. By enforcing a pattern of life, Darktrace can restrict a device (or devices) to its learned behavior, allowing it to continue regular business activities uninterrupted while blocking any deviations from expected activity.

Figure 3: Actions suggested by Darktrace to contain the emerging activity, including blocking connections to the suspicious endpoint and restricting the device to its ‘pattern of life’.

Conclusion

Backdoor tools like WarmCookie enable threat actors to gather and leverage information from target systems to deploy additional malicious payloads, escalating their cyber attacks. Given that WarmCookie’s primary distribution method seems to be through phishing campaigns masquerading as trusted recruitments firms, it has the potential to affect a large number of organizations.

In the face of such threats, Darktrace’s behavioral analysis provides organizations with full visibility over anomalous activity on their digital estates, regardless of whether the threat bypasses by human security teams or email security tools. While threat actors seemingly managed to evade customers’ native email security and gain access to their networks in these cases, Darktrace identified the suspicious behavior associated with WarmCookie and swiftly notified customer security teams.

Had Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability been fully enabled in these cases, it could have blocked any suspicious connections and subsequent activity in real-time, without the need of human intervention, effectively containing the attacks in the first instance.

Credit to Justin Torres, Cyber Security Analyst and Dylan Hinz, Senior Cyber Security Analyst

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections

- Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location

- Anomalous File / Masqueraded File Transfer

- Compromise / Beacon to Young Endpoint

- Compromise / Beaconing Activity To External Rare

- Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to New Endpoint

- Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination

- Compromise / High Volume of Connections with Beacon Score

- Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Successful Connections

- Compromise / Quick and Regular Windows HTTP Beaconing

- Compromise / SSL or HTTP Beacon

- Compromise / Slow Beaconing Activity To External Rare

- Compromise / Sustained SSL or HTTP Increase

- Compromise / Sustained TCP Beaconing Activity To Rare Endpoint

- Anomalous Connection / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint

- Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname

- Compromise / Sustained SSL or HTTP Increase

AI Analyst Incident Coverage:

- Unusual Repeated Connections

- Possible SSL Command and Control to Multiple Endpoints

- Possible HTTP Command and Control

- Suspicious File Download

Darktrace RESPOND Model Detections:

- Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Block

- Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Pattern of Life Block

List of IoCs

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence

185.49.69[.]41 – IP Address – WarmCookie C2 Endpoint

/data/2849d40ade47af8edfd4e08352dd2cc8 – URI – Likely WarmCookie URI

/data/b834116823f01aeceed215e592dfcba7 – URI – Likely WarmCookie URI

4ddf0d9c750bfeaebdacc14152319e21305443ff - SHA1 Hash – Possible Malicious File

5b0a35c574ee40c4bccb9b0b942f9a9084216816 - SHA1 Hash – Possiblem Malicious File

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

(Technique Name) – (Tactic) – (ID) – (Sub-Technique of)

Drive-by Compromise - INITIAL ACCESS - T1189

Ingress Tool Transfer - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1105

Malware - RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT - T1588.001 - T1588

Lateral Tool Transfer - LATERAL MOVEMENT - T1570

Web Protocols - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1071.001 - T1071

Web Services - RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT - T1583.006 - T1583

Browser Extensions - PERSISTENCE - T1176

Application Layer Protocol - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1071

Fallback Channels - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1008

Multi-Stage Channels - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1104

Non-Standard Port - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1571

One-Way Communication - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1102.003 - T1102

Encrypted Channel - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1573

External Proxy - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1090.002 - T1090

Non-Application Layer Protocol - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1095

References

[1] https://www.elastic.co/security-labs/dipping-into-danger

[2] https://www.gdatasoftware.com/blog/2024/06/37947-badspace-backdoor

[3] https://thehackernews.com/2024/06/new-phishing-campaign-deploys.html

Written by

Justin Torres

Cyber Analyst

Inside the SOC

Written by

Justin Torres

Cyber Analyst

Malware Research Engineer

•

April 28, 2026

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April 29, 2026

Darktrace Malware Analysis: Jenkins Honeypot Reveals Emerging Botnet Targeting Online Games

DDoS Botnet discovery

To observe adversary behavior in real time, Darktrace operates a global honeypot network known as “CloudyPots”, designed to capture malicious activity across a wide range of services, protocols, and cloud platforms. These honeypots provide valuable insights into the techniques, tools, and malware actively targeting internet‑facing infrastructure.

How attackers used a Jenkins honeypot to deploy the botnet

One such software honeypotted by Darktrace is Jenkins, a CI build system that allows developers to build code and run tests automatically. The instance of Jenkins in Darktrace’s honeypot is intentionally configured with a weak password, allowing attackers to obtain remote code execution on the service.

In one instance observed by Darktrace on March 18, 2026, a threat actor seemingly attempted to target Darktrace’s Jenkins honeypot to deploy a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnet. Further analysis by Darktrace’s Threat Research team revealed the botnet was intended to specifically target video game servers.

How the Jenkins scriptText endpoint was used for remote code execution

The Jenkins build system features an endpoint named scriptText, which enables users to programmatically send new jobs, in the form of a Groovy script. Groovy is a programming language with similar syntax to Java and runs using the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). An attacker can abuse the scriptText endpoint to run a malicious script, achieving code execution on the victim host.

*Figure 1: Request sent to the scriptText endpoint containing the malicious script.*

The malicious script is sent using the form-data content type, which results in the contents of the script being URL encoded. This encoding can be decoded to recover the original script, as shown in Figure 2, where Darktrace Analysts decoded the script using CyberChef,

*Figure 2: The malicious script decoded using CyberChef.*

What happens after Jenkins is compromised

As Jenkins can be deployed on both Microsoft Windows and Linux systems, the script includes separate branches to target each platform.

In the case of Windows, the script performs the following actions:

Downloads a payload from 103[.]177.110.202/w.exe and saves it to C:\Windows\Temp\update.dat.
Renames the “update.dat” file to “win_sys.exe” (within the same folder)
Runs the Unblock-File command is used to remove security restrictions typically applied to files downloaded from the internet.
Adds a firewall allow rule is added for TCP port 5444, which the payload uses for command-and-control (C2) communications.

On Linux systems, the script will instead use a Bash one-liner to download the payload from 103[.]177.110.202/bot_x64.exe to /tmp/bot and execute it.

Why this botnet uses a single IP for delivery and command and control

The IP 103[.]177.110.202 belongs to Webico Company Limited, specifically its Tino brand, a Vietnamese company that offers domain registrar services and server hosting. Geolocation data indicates that the IP is located in Ho Chi Minh City. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis revealed multiple malicious associations tied to the IP [1].

Darktrace’s analysis found that the IP 103[.]177.110.202 is used for multiple stages of an attack, including spreading and initial access, delivering payloads, and C2 communication. This is an unusual combination, as many malware families separate their spreading servers from their C2 infrastructure. Typically, malware distribution activity results in a high volume of abuse complaints, which may result in server takedowns or service suspension by internet providers. Separate C2 infrastructure ensures that existing infections remain controllable even if the spreading server is disrupted.

How the malware evades detection and maintains persistence

Analysis of the Linux payload (bot _x64)

The sample begins by setting the environmental variables BUILD_ID and JENKINS_NODE_COOKIE to “dontKillMe”. By default, Jenkins terminates long-running scripts after a defined timeout period; however, setting these variables to “dontKillMe” bypasses this check, allowing the script to continue running uninterrupted.

The script then performs several stealth behaviors to evade detection. First, it deletes the original executable from disk and then renames itself to resemble the legitimate kernel processes “ksoftirqd/0” or “kworker”, which are found on Linux installations by default. It then uses a double fork to daemonize itself, enabling it to run in the background, before redirecting standard input, standard output, and standard error to /dev/null, hiding any logging from the malware. Finally, the script creates a signal handler for signals such as SIGTERM, causing them to be ignored and making it harder to stop the process.

*Figure 3: Stealth component of the main function*

How the botnet communicates with command and control (C2)

The sample then connects to the C2 server and sends the detected architecture of the system on which the agent was installed. The malware then enters a loop to handle incoming commands.

The sample features two types of commands, utility commands used to manage the malware, and commands to trigger attacks. Three special commands are defined: “PING” (which replies with PONG as a keep-alive mechanism), “!stop” which causes the malware to exit, and “!update”, which triggers the malware to download a new version from the C2 server and restart itself.

*Figure 4: Initial connection to the C2 sever.*

What DDoS attack techniques this botnet uses

The attack commands consist of the following:

Many of these commands invoke the same function despite appearing to be different attack techniques. For example, specialized attacks such as Cloudflare bypass (cfbypass, uam) use the exact same function as a standard HTTP attack. This may indicate the threat actor is attempting to make the botnet look like it has more capabilities than it actually has, or it could suggest that these commands are placeholders for future attack functionality that has yet to be implemented

All the commands take three arguments: IP, port to attack, and the duration of the attack.

attack_udp and attack_udp_pps

The attack_udp and attack_udp_pps functions both use a basic loop and sendto system call to send UDP packets to the victim’s IP, either targeting a predetermined port or a random port. The attack_udp function sends packets with 1,450 bytes of data, aimed at bandwidth saturation, while the attack_udp_pps function sends smaller 64-byte packets. In both cases, the data body of the packet consists of entirely random data.

*Figure 5: Code for the UDP attack method*

attack_dayz

The attack_dayz function follows a similar structure to the attack_udp function; however, instead of sending random data, it will instead send a TSource Engine Query. This command is specific to Valve Source Engine servers and is designed to return a large volume of data about the targeted server. By repeatedly flooding this request, an attacker can exhaust the resources of a server using a comparatively small amount of data.

The Valve Source Engine server, also called Source Engine Dedicated server, is a server developed by video game company Valve that enables multiplayer gameplay for titles built using the Source game engine, which is also developed by Valve. The Source engine is used in games such as Counterstrike and Team Fortress 2. Curiously, the function attack_dayz, appears to be named after another popular online multiplayer game, DayZ; however, DayZ does not use the Valve Source Engine, making it unclear why this name was chosen.

The code for the “attack_dayz” attack function. — *Figure 6: The code for the* “*attack_dayz” attack function.*

attack_tcp_push

The attack_tcp_push function establishes a TCP socket with the non-blocking flag set, allowing it to rapidly call functions such as connect() and send() without waiting for their completion. For the duration of the attack, it enters a while loop in which it repeatedly connects to the victim, sends 1,024 bytes of random data, and then closes the connection. This process repeats until the attack duration ends. If the mode flag is set to 1, the function also configures the socket with TCP no-delay enabled, allowing for packets to be sent immediately without buffering, resulting in a higher packet rate and a more effective attack.

*Figure 7: The code for the TCP attack function.*

attack_http

Similar to attach_tcp_push, attack_http configures a socket with no-delay enabled and non-blocking set. After establishing the connection, it sends 64 HTTP GET requests before closing the socket.

*Figure 8: The code for the HTTP attack function.*

attack_special

The attack_special function creates a UDP socket and sets the port and payload based on the value of the mode flag:

Mode 0: Port 53 (DNS), sending a 10-byte malformed data packet.
Mode 1: Port 27015 (Valve Source Engine), sending the previously observed TSource Engine Query packet.
Mode 2: Port 123 (NTP), sending the start of an NTP control request.

*Figure 9: The code for the attack_special function.*

What this botnet reveals about opportunistic attacks on internet-facing systems

Jenkins is one of the less frequently exploited services honeypotted by Darktrace, with only a handful campaigns observed. Nonetheless, the emergence of this new DDoS botnet demonstrates that attackers continue to opportunistically exploit any internet-facing misconfiguration at scale to grow the botnet strength.

While the hosts most commonly affected by these opportunistic attacks are usually “lower-value” systems, this distinction is largely irrelevant for botnets, where numbers alone are more important to overall effectiveness

The presence of game-specific DoS techniques further highlights that the gaming industry continues to be extensively targeted by cyber attackers, with Cloudflare reporting it as the fourth most targeted industry [2]. This botnet has likely already been used against game servers, serving as a reminder for server operators to ensure appropriate mitigations are in place.

Credit to Nathaniel Bill (Malware Research Engineer)
Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

103[.]177.110.202 - Attacker and command-and-control IP

F79d05065a2ba7937b8781e69b5859d78d5f65f01fb291ae27d28277a5e37f9b – bot_x64

References

[1] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/86db2530298e6335d3ecc66c2818cfbd0a6b11fcdfcb75f575b9fcce1faa00f1/detection

[2] - https://blog.cloudflare.com/ddos-threat-report-2025-q4/

About the author

Nathaniel Bill

Malware Research Engineer

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AI

April 28, 2026

State of AI Cybersecurity 2026: 87% of security professionals are seeing more AI-driven threats, but few feel ready to stop them

The findings in this blog are taken from Darktrace’s annual State of AI Cybersecurity Report 2026.

In part 1 of this blog series, we explored how AI is remaking the attack surface, with new tools, models, agents — and vulnerabilities — popping up just about everywhere. Now embedded in workflows across the enterprise, and often with far-reaching access to sensitive data, AI systems are quickly becoming a favorite target of cyber threat actors.

Among bad actors, though, AI is more often used as a tool than a target. Nearly 62% of organizations experienced a social engineering attack involving a deepfake, or an incident in which bad actors used AI-generated video or audio to try to trick a biometric authentication system, compared to 32% that reported an AI prompt injection attack.

In the hands of attackers, AI can do many things. It’s being used across the entire kill chain: to supercharge reconnaissance, personalize phishing, accelerate lateral movement, and automate data exfiltration. Evidence from Anthropic demonstrates that threat actors have harnessed AI to orchestrate an entire cyber espionage campaign from end to end, allegedly running it with minimal human involvement.

CISOs inhabit a world where these increasingly sophisticated attacks are ubiquitous. Naturally, combatting AI-powered threats is top of mind among security professionals, but many worry about whether their capabilities are up to the challenge.

AI-powered threats at scale: no longer hypothetical

AI-driven threats share signature characteristics. They operate at speed and scale. Automated tools can probe multiple attack paths, search for multiple vulnerabilities and send out a barrage of phishing emails, all within seconds. The ability to attack everywhere at once, at a pace that no human operator could sustain, is the hallmark of an AI-powered threat. AI-powered threats are also dynamic. They can adapt their behavior to spread across a network more efficiently or rewrite their own code to evade detection.

Security teams are seeing the signs that they’re fighting AI-powered threats at every stage of the kill chain, and the sophistication of these threats is testing their resolve and their resources.

73% say that AI-powered cyber threats are having a significant impact on their organization
92% agree that these threats are forcing them to upgrade their defenses
87% agree that AI is significantly increasing the sophistication and success rate of malware
87% say AI is significantly increasing the workload of their security operations team

These teams now confront a challenge unlike anything they’ve seen before in their careers, and the risks are compounding across workflows, tools, data, and identities. It’s no surprise that 66% of security professionals say their role is more stressful today than it was five years ago, or that 47% report feeling overwhelmed at work.

Up all night: Security professionals’ worry list is long

Traditional security methods were never built to handle the complexity and subtlety of AI-driven behavior. Working in the trenches, defenders have deep firsthand experience of how difficult it can be to detect and stop AI-assisted threats.

Increasingly effective social engineering attacks are among their top concerns. 50% of security leaders mentioned hyper-personalized phishing campaigns as one of their biggest worries, while 40% voiced apprehension about deepfake voice fraud. These concerns are legitimate: AI-generated phishing emails are increasingly tailored to individual organizations, business activities, or individuals. Gone are the telltale signs – like grammar or spelling mistakes – that once distinguished malicious communications. Notably, 33% of the malicious emails Darktrace observed in 2025 contained over 1,000 characters, indicating probable LLM usage.

Security leaders also worry about how bad actors can leverage AI to make attacks even faster and more dynamic. 45% listed automated vulnerability scanning and exploit chaining among their biggest concerns, while 40% mentioned adaptive malware.

Confidence is lacking

Protecting against AI demands capabilities that many organizations have not yet built. It requires interpreting new indicators, uncovering the subtle intent within interactions, and recognizing when AI behavior – human or machine – could be suspicious. Leaders know that their current tools aren’t prepared for this. Nearly half don’t feel confident in their ability to defend against AI-powered attacks.

We’ve asked participants in our survey about their confidence for the last three years now. In 2024, 60% said their organizations were not adequately prepared to defend against AI-driven threats. Last year, that percentage shrunk to 45%, a possible indicator that security programs were making progress. Since then, however, the progress has apparently stalled. 46% of security leaders now feel inadequately prepared to protect their organizations amidst the current threat landscape.

Some of these differences are accentuated across different cultures. Respondents in Japan are far less confident (77% say they are not adequately prepared) than respondents in Brazil (where only 21% don’t feel prepared).

Where security programs are falling short

It’s no longer the case that cybersecurity is overlooked or underfunded by executive leadership. Across industries, management recognizes that AI-powered threats are a growing problem, and insufficient budget is near the bottom of most CISO’s list of reasons that they struggle to defend against AI-powered threats.

It’s the things that money can’t buy – experience, knowledge, and confidence – that are holding programs back. Near the top of the list of inhibitors that survey participants mention is “insufficient knowledge or use of AI-driven countermeasures.” As bad actors embrace AI technologies en masse, this challenge is coming into clearer focus: attack-centric security tools, which rely on static rules, signatures, and historical attack patterns, were never designed to handle the complexity and subtlety of AI-driven attacks. These challenges feel new to security teams, but they are the core problems Darktrace was built to solve.

Our Self-Learning AI develops a deep understanding of what “normal” looks like for your organization –including unique traffic patterns, end user habits, application and device profiles – so that it can detect and stop novel, dynamic threats at the first encounter. By focusing on learning the business, rather than the attack, our AI can keep pace with AI-powered threats as they evolve.

‍

Explore the full State of AI Cybersecurity 2026 report for deeper insights into how security leaders are responding to AI-driven risks.

Learn more about securing AI in your enterprise.

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Check out this article by Darktrace: Understanding the WarmCookie Backdoor Threat

Understanding the WarmCookie Backdoor Threat

What is WarmCookie malware?

How does WarmCookie malware work?

Darktrace Coverage of WarmCookie

Conclusion

Appendices

List of IoCs

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

References

Darktrace Malware Analysis: Jenkins Honeypot Reveals Emerging Botnet Targeting Online Games

State of AI Cybersecurity 2026: 87% of security professionals are seeing more AI-driven threats, but few feel ready to stop them

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April 29, 2026

Darktrace Malware Analysis: Jenkins Honeypot Reveals Emerging Botnet Targeting Online Games

DDoS Botnet discovery

How attackers used a Jenkins honeypot to deploy the botnet

How the Jenkins scriptText endpoint was used for remote code execution

What happens after Jenkins is compromised

Why this botnet uses a single IP for delivery and command and control

How the malware evades detection and maintains persistence

How the botnet communicates with command and control (C2)

What DDoS attack techniques this botnet uses

attack_udp and attack_udp_pps

attack_dayz

attack_tcp_push

What this botnet reveals about opportunistic attacks on internet-facing systems

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

Blog

AI

April 28, 2026

State of AI Cybersecurity 2026: 87% of security professionals are seeing more AI-driven threats, but few feel ready to stop them

AI-powered threats at scale: no longer hypothetical

Up all night: Security professionals’ worry list is long

Confidence is lacking

Where security programs are falling short