Unmasking Holiday Doppelgangers | Cyber AI Defense Strategy
Protect your online holiday shopping this season with Cyber AI. Learn how to spot doppelganger domains and prevent cyber-attacks in real time. Stay secure!
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 Fier
SVP, Red Team Operations
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17
Dec 2019
Year after year, the holiday season witnesses an unprecedented exchange of cash in cyberspace, with American consumers alone projected to spend a record $143.7 billion on online holiday shopping in 2019.
And amid the desperation to take advantage of digital doorbusters, shoppers can find themselves racing between dozens of retail sites — all in pursuit of the dream deal.
Figure 1: The majority of holiday shopping is now done online. Data source: Adobe Digital Insights.
This frenzy of passwords, money, and credit card information changing hands over the winter months coalesces into the perfect storm for cyber-attacks. In November and December of last year, Darktrace observed a 128% rise in trojan attacks across our customer base relative to the previous two months. Such trojans, which leverage social engineering to mask their true nature, are often facilitated by “doppelganger” domains — slight variations of legitimate domain names that are used for malicious purposes. Indeed, doppelganger attacks in particular increased by 70% during the 2018 holidays, per Darktrace’s internal research.
For employees bombarded with time-sensitive discounts on their work devices and corporate email accounts, it is all too easy to miss the subtle signs of a doppelganger, while just a single click can cause an enterprise-wide breach. As a result, neither these employees nor traditional email security tools — which cannot be programmed in advance to spot the infinity of possible fake domains — are sufficient as a last line of defense. Rather, the only reliable way to sniff out convincing doppelgangers is Cyber AI. By learning the online behavior of each unique user and device that it protects, without preprogrammed rules or fixed IP blacklists, Cyber AI can distinguish between “naughty” and “nice” domains in real time.
Exposing a holiday doppelganger
Darktrace recently detected a doppelganger attack before it completed its objective: stealing sensitive financial information. Threat-actors typically attempt to recreate popular websites, and in this case, the duplicitous site masqueraded as an Amazon-associated page. Of course, the webpage had no connection to the genuine retail entity. Yet the targeted device’s firewall did not block it, since there is no way to anticipate all future doppelganger domains. And while the webpage also had misspellings and fake product images, the user — perhaps rushing to take advantage of a deal — did not notice.
Figure 2: The doppelganger page — only a close examination reveals the irregularities highlighted above.
Most major businesses today utilize the standard security protocol “https://,” especially when payment information is involved, to encrypt the sensitive data being transferred. This measure alone does not guarantee a safe connection if the website itself was created or compromised by malicious actors — notwithstanding the digital padlock that appears beside HTTPS URLs. This doppelganger site, though, used the unencrypted HTTP protocol shown below (hence the unsecure padlock in Figure 2):
http://amazoner.info/checkout/
Because a significant percentage of legitimate websites still use HTTP, blocking connections to all such sites would be a mistake. By contrast, Darktrace Cyber AI, which had developed a nuanced understanding of the user’s online activity, correlated several weak indicators of compromise to flag the doppelganger as a potential threat.
Figure 3: Darktrace flags the site as a 100% rare for the targeted user.
Once on the initial webpage, the user — engaged in what they believed to be regular online shopping — navigated to linked sites that were apparently associated with other popular clothing retailers:
ebay.amazoner.info
johnlewis.com.amazoner.info
asos.com.amazoner.inf
argos.co.uk.amazoner.info
indeed.co.uk.amazoner.info
Darktrace, again, determined that the escalating activity was highly unusual for the particular user. At this point, the security team was able to take the device offline for further investigation — before the user had entered any financial information.
’Tis the season to be secure
When it comes to what methods cyber-criminals will turn to next, the holiday season is full of unpredictability. No one knows what exactly the next doppelganger will look like, meaning that perimeter tools struggle to identify novel attacks before it’s too late.
As individual users, it is imperative to be wary of emails and ads that seem at all suspicious, even if it isn’t clear why. And when in doubt, it is always better to navigate directly to retail sites like Amazon from your browser, rather than clicking on an email link. The default disposition when shopping online — especially during the holidays — should be overcautiousness. Keep an eye out for broken language, typos, and design flaws that would all be rare on trustworthy retail sites, ensure URLs are legitimate before entering any information, and in general, trust your instincts when they sense something is amiss.
From an organizational standpoint, on the other hand, assume that employees won’t do any of the above. Human error is responsible for the vast majority of breaches, so expecting employees and conventional security tools to never allow attackers into the network is a recipe for compromise. Instead, to prepare for the inevitability of attack, what’s needed are Cyber AI tools that detect in-progress threats — not by predefining ‘bad’ but by understanding ‘self’. With self-learning Cyber AI, organizations are now readying themselves for the holidays, for sophisticated doppelgangers, and for the unpredictable.
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.
Atomic Stealer: Darktrace’s Investigation of a Growing macOS Threat
The Rise of Infostealers Targeting Apple Users
In a threat landscape historically dominated by Windows-based threats, the growing prevalence of macOS information stealers targeting Apple users is becoming an increasing concern for organizations. Infostealers are a type of malware designed to steal sensitive data from target devices, often enabling attackers to extract credentials and financial data for resale or further exploitation. Recent research identified infostealers as the largest category of new macOS malware, with an alarming 101% increase in the last two quarters of 2024 [1].
What is Atomic Stealer?
Among the most notorious is Atomic macOS Stealer (or AMOS), first observed in 2023. Known for its sophisticated build, Atomic Stealer can exfiltrate a wide range of sensitive information including keychain passwords, cookies, browser data and cryptocurrency wallets.
Originally marketed on Telegram as a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS), Atomic Stealer has become a popular malware due to its ability to target macOS. Like other MaaS offerings, it includes services like a web panel for managing victims, with reports indicating a monthly subscription cost between $1,000 and $3,000 [2]. Although Atomic Stealer’s original intent was as a standalone MaaS product, its unique capability to target macOS has led to new variants emerging at an unprecedented rate
Even more concerning, the most recent variant has now added a backdoor for persistent access [3]. This backdoor presents a significant threat, as Atomic Stealer campaigns are believed to have reached an around 120 countries. The addition of a backdoor elevates Atomic Stealer to the rare category of backdoor deployments potentially at a global scale, something only previously attributed to nation-state threat actors [4].
This level of sophistication is also evident in the wide range of distribution methods observed since its first appearance; including fake application installers, malvertising and terminal command execution via the ClickFix technique. The ClickFix technique is particularly noteworthy: once the malware is downloaded onto the device, users are presented with what appears to be a legitimate macOS installation prompt. In reality, however, the user unknowingly initiates the execution of the Atomic Stealer malware.
This blog will focus on activity observed across multiple Darktrace customer environments where Atomic Stealer was detected, along with several indicators of compromise (IoCs). These included devices that successfully connected to endpoints associated with Atomic Stealer, those that attempted but failed to establish connections, and instances suggesting potential data exfiltration activity.
Darktrace’s Coverage of Atomic Stealer
As this evolving threat began to spread across the internet in June 2025, Darktrace observed a surge in Atomic Stealer activity, impacting numerous customers in 24 different countries worldwide. Initially, most of the cases detected in 2025 affected Darktrace customers within the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. However, later in the year, Darktrace began to observe a more even distribution of cases across EMEA, the Americas (AMS), and Asia Pacific (APAC). While multiple sectors were impacted by Atomic Stealer, Darktrace customers in the education sector were the most affected, particularly during September and October, coinciding with the return to school and universities after summer closures. This spike likely reflects increased device usage as students returned and reconnected potentially compromised devices to school and campus environments.
Starting from June, Darktrace detected multiple events of suspicious HTTP activity to external connections to IPs in the range 45.94.47.0/24. Investigation by Darktrace’s Threat Research team revealed several distinct patterns ; HTTP POST requests to the URI “/contact”, identical cURL User Agents and HTTP requests to “/api/tasks/[base64 string]” URIs.
Within one observed customer’s environment in July, Darktrace detected two devices making repeated initiated HTTP connections over port 80 to IPs within the same range. The first, Device A, was observed making GET requests to the IP 45.94.47[.]158 (AS60781 LeaseWeb Netherlands B.V.), targeting the URI “/api/tasks/[base64string]” using the “curl/8.7.2” user agent. This pattern suggested beaconing activity and triggered the ‘Beaconing Activity to External Rare' model alert in Darktrace / NETWORK, with Device A’s Model Event Log showing repeated connections. The IP associated with this endpoint has since been flagged by multiple open-source intelligence (OSINT) vendors as being associated with Atomic Stealer [5].
Figure 1: Darktrace’s detection of Device A showing repeated connections to the suspicious IP address over port 80, indicative of beaconing behavior.
Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst subsequently launched an investigation into the activity, uncovering that the GET requests resulted in a ‘503 Service Unavailable’ response, likely indicating that the server was temporarily unable to process the requests.
Figure 2: Cyber AI Analyst Incident showing the 503 Status Code, indicating that the server was temporarily unavailable.
This unusual activity prompted Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability to recommend several blocking actions for the device in an attempt to stop the malicious activity. However, as the customer’s Autonomous Response configuration was set to Human Confirmation Mode, Darktrace was unable to automatically apply these actions. Had Autonomous Response been fully enabled, these connections would have been blocked, likely rendering the malware ineffective at reaching its malicious command-and-control (C2) infrastructure.
Figure 3: Autonomous Response’s suggested actions to block suspicious connectivity on Device A in the first customer environment.
In another customer environment in August, Darktrace detected similar IoCs, noting a device establishing a connection to the external endpoint 45.94.47[.]149 (ASN: AS57043 Hostkey B.V.). Shortly after the initial connections, the device was observed making repeated requests to the same destination IP, targeting the URI /api/tasks/[base64string] with the user agent curl/8.7.1, again suggesting beaconing activity. Further analysis of this endpoint after the fact revealed links to Atomic Stealer in OSINT reporting [6].
Figure 4: Cyber AI Analyst investigation finding a suspicious URI and user agent for the offending device within the second customer environment.
As with the customer in the first case, had Darktrace’s Autonomous Response been properly configured on the customer’s network, it would have been able to block connectivity with 45.94.47[.]149. Instead, Darktrace suggested recommended actions that the customer’s security team could manually apply to help contain the attack.
Figure 5: Autonomous Response’s suggested actions to block suspicious connectivity to IP 45.94.47[.]149 for the device within the second customer environment.
In the most recent case observed by Darktrace in October, multiple instances of Atomic Stealer activity were seen across one customer’s environment, with two devices communicating with Atomic Stealer C2 infrastructure. During this incident, one device was observed making an HTTP GET request to the IP 45.94.47[.]149 (ASN: AS60781 LeaseWeb Netherlands B.V.). These connections targeted the URI /api/tasks/[base64string, using the user agent curl/8.7.1.
Shortly afterward, the device began making repeated connections over port 80 to the same external IP, 45.94.47[.]149. This activity continued for several days until Darktrace detected the device making an HTTP POST request to a new IP, 45.94.47[.]211 (ASN: AS57043 Hostkey B.V.), this time targeting the URI /contact, again using the curl/8.7.1 user agent. Similar to the other IPs observed in beaconing activity, OSINT reporting later linked this one to information stealer C2 infrastructure [7].
Figure 6: Darktrace’s detection of suspicious beaconing connectivity with the suspicious IP 45.94.47.211.
Further investigation into this customer’s network revealed that similar activity had been occurring as far back as August, when Darktrace detected data exfiltration on a second device. Cyber AI Analyst identified this device making a single HTTP POST connection to the external IP 45.94.47[.]144, another IP with malicious links [8], using the user agent curl/8.7.1 and targeting the URI /contact.
Figure 7: Cyber AI Analyst investigation finding a successful POST request to 45.94.47[.]144 for the device within the third customer environment.
A deeper investigation into the technical details within the POST request revealed the presence of a file named “out.zip”, suggesting potential data exfiltration.
Figure 8: Advanced Search log in Darktrace / NETWORK showing “out.zip”, indicating potential data exfiltration for a device within the third customer environment.
Similarly, in another environment, Darktrace was able to collect a packet capture (PCAP) of suspected Atomic Stealer activity, which revealed potential indicators of data exfiltration. This included the presence of the “out.zip” file being exfiltrated via an HTTP POST request, along with data that appeared to contain details of an Electrum cryptocurrency wallet and possible passwords.
Read more about Darktrace’s full deep dive into a similar case where this tactic was leveraged by malware as part of an elaborate cryptocurrency scam.
Figure 9: PCAP of an HTTP POST request showing the file “out.zip” and details of Electrum Cryptocurrency wallet.
Although recent research attributes the “out.zip” file to a new variant named SHAMOS [9], it has also been linked more broadly to Atomic Stealer [10]. Indeed, this is not the first instance where Darktrace has seen the “out.zip” file in cases involving Atomic Stealer either. In a previous blog detailing a social engineering campaign that targeted cryptocurrency users with the Realst Stealer, the macOS version of Realst contained a binary that was found to be Atomic Stealer, and similar IoCs were identified, including artifacts of data exfiltration such as the “out.zip” file.
Conclusion
The rapid rise of Atomic Stealer and its ability to target macOS marks a significant shift in the threat landscape and should serve as a clear warning to Apple users who were traditionally perceived as more secure in a malware ecosystem historically dominated by Windows-based threats.
Atomic Stealer’s growing popularity is now challenging that perception, expanding its reach and accessibility to a broader range of victims. Even more concerning is the emergence of a variant embedded with a backdoor, which is likely to increase its appeal among a diverse range of threat actors. Darktrace’s ability to adapt and detect new tactics and IoCs in real time delivers the proactive defense organizations need to protect themselves against emerging threats before they can gain momentum.
Credit to Isabel Evans (Cyber Analyst), Dylan Hinz (Associate Principal Cyber Analyst) Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)
How Darktrace is ending email security silos with new capabilities in cross-domain detection, DLP, and native Microsoft integrations
A new era of reputation-aware, unified email security
Darktrace / EMAIL is redefining email defense with new innovations that close email security silos and empower SOC teams to stop multi-stage attacks – without disrupting business operations.
By extending visibility across interconnected domains, Darktrace catches the 17% of threats that leading SEGs miss, including multi-stage attacks like email bombing and cloud platform abuse. Its label-free behavioral DLP protects sensitive data without reliance on manual rules or classification, while DMARC strengthens brand trust and authenticity. With native integrations for Microsoft Defender and Security Copilot, SOC teams can now investigate and respond faster, reducing risk and maintaining operational continuity across the enterprise.
Summary of what’s new:
Cross-domain AI-native detection unifying email, identity, and SaaS
Label-free behavioral DLP for effortless data protection
Microsoft Defender and Security Copilot integrations for streamlined investigation and response
Why email security must evolve
Today’s attacks don’t stop at the inbox. They move across domains – email to identity, SaaS, and network – exploiting the blind spots between disconnected tools. Yet most email security solutions still operate in isolation, unable to see or respond beyond the message itself.
Tool sprawl compounds the issue. The average enterprise manages around 75 security products, and 69% report operational strain as a result. This complexity is counterproductive – and with legacy SEGs failing to adapt to detect threats that exploit human behavior, analysts are left juggling an unwieldy patchwork of fragmented defenses.
The bottom line? Siloed email defenses can’t keep pace with today’s AI-driven, cross domain attacks.
Beyond detection: AI built for modern threats
Darktrace / EMAIL is uniquely designed to catch the threats SEGs miss, powered by Self-Learning AI. It learns the communication patterns of every user – correlating behavioral signals from email, identity, and SaaS – to identify the subtle, context-driven deviations that define advanced social engineering and supply chain attacks.
Unlike tools that rely on static rules or historical attack data, Darktrace’s AI assumes a zero trust posture, treating every interaction as a potential risk. It detects novel threats in real time, including those that exploit trusted relationships or mimic legitimate business processes. And because Darktrace’s technology is natively unified, it delivers precise, coordinated responses that neutralize threats in real time.
Powerful innovations to Darktrace / EMAIL
Improved, multi-domain threat detection and response
With this update, Darktrace reveals multi-domain detection linking behavioral signals across email, identity, and SaaS to uncover advanced attacks. Darktrace leverages its existing agentic platform to understand behavioral deviations in any communication channel and take precise actions regardless of the domain.
This innovation enables customers to:
Correlate behavioral signals across domains to expose cross-channel threats and enable coordinated response
Link email and identity intelligence to neutralize multi-stage attacks, including advanced email bombing campaigns
Detection accuracy is further strengthened through layering with traditional threat intelligence:
Integrated antivirus verdicts improve detection efficacy by adding traditional file scanning
Structured threat intelligence (STIX/TAXII) enriches alerts with global context for faster triage and prioritization
Expanded ecosystem visibility also includes:
Salesforce integration, enabling automatic action on potentially malicious tickets auto-created from emails – accelerating threat response and reducing manual burden
Advancements in label-free DLP
Darktrace is delivering the industry’s first label-free data loss prevention (DLP) solution powered by a proprietary domain specific language model (DSLM).
This update expands DLP to protect against both secrets and personally identifiable information (PII), safeguarding sensitive data without relying on status rules or manual classification. The DSLM is tuned for email/DLP semantics so it understands entities, PII patterns, and message context quickly enough to enforce at send time.
Key enhancements include:
Behaviorally enhanced PII detection that automatically defines over 35+ new categories, including personal, financial, and health data
Added detail to DLP alerts in the UI, showing exactly how and when DLP policies were applied
Enhanced Cyber AI Analyst narratives to explain detection logic, making it easier to investigate and escalate incidents
And for further confidence in outbound mail, discover new updates to DMARC, with support for BIMI logo verification, automatic detection of both MTA-STS and TLS records, and data exports for deeper analysis and reporting. Accessible for all organizations, available now on the Azure marketplace.
Streamlined SOC workflows, with Microsoft-native integrations
This update introduces new integrations that simplify SOC operations, unify visibility, and accelerate response. By embedding directly into the Microsoft ecosystem – with Defender and Security Copilot – analysts gain instant access to correlated insights without switching consoles.
New innovations include:
Unified quarantine management with Microsoft Defender, centralizing containment within the native Microsoft interface and eliminating console hopping
Ability to surface threat insights directly in Copilot via the Darktrace Email Analysis Agent, eliminating data hunting and simplifying investigations
Automatic ticket creation in JIRA when users report suspicious messages
Sandbox analysis integration, enabling payload inspection in isolated environments directly from the Darktrace UI
Committed to innovation
These updates are part of the broader Darktrace release, which also included:
As attackers exploit gaps between tools, the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform delivers unified detection, automated investigation, and autonomous response across cloud, endpoint, email, network, and OT. With full-stack visibility and AI-native workflows, Darktrace empowers security teams to detect, understand, and stop novel threats before they escalate.
Join our Live Launch Event
When? December 9, 2025
What will be covered? Join our live broadcast to experience how Darktrace is eliminating blind spots for detection and response across your complete enterprise with new innovations in Agentic AI across our ActiveAI Security platform. Industry leaders from IDC will join Darktrace customers to discuss challenges in cross-domain security, with a live walkthrough reshaping the future of Network Detection & Response, Endpoint Detection & Response, Email Security, and SecOps in novel threat detection and autonomous investigations.
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![Cyber AI Analyst investigation finding a successful POST request to 45.94.47[.]144 for the device within the third customer environment.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/626ff4d25aca2edf4325ff97/6931e41d22eb7e9a3e8217d5_Screenshot%202025-12-04%20at%2011.42.15%E2%80%AFAM.png)
