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November 15, 2021

Darktrace Defends McLaren Racing From Supply Chain Attacks

McLaren Racing chose Darktrace's self-learning AI to fight off supply chain attacks. Learn how Darktrace safeguards their organization with elite cybersecurity.
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Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
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15
Nov 2021

McLaren Racing has a track record of forming valuable and innovative partnerships. Without these partnerships and the web of organisations that make up our supply chain, it’s unlikely we could be where we are today.

Figure 1: The origins of the different components of McLaren’s 2021 car

Each component of the McLaren Formula 1 car – engine, tyres, brakes, suspension – has a long and complicated backstory, from the R&D labs where it was conceived, to the factory floor on which it was manufactured, to transport and logistics getting it to where it needs to be.

Looking at the entire organisation, the situation is even more complex. IT hardware and software, telemetry, and data analysis tools, each represent a critical component to McLaren Racing’s ecosystem. Without it, we couldn’t function at the top of our game.

But from a security perspective, each of these represent a potential chink in the team’s defensive armour, against a backdrop of a cyber-threat landscape which becomes more hostile every year. As we’ve seen this year from the likes of the SolarWinds hack and the Kaseya software exploit, attackers are waking up to the fact that the supply chain represents a significant opportunity.

A single supplier may represent a point of entry into thousands of organisations. For cyber-criminals, this means one successful compromise can result in more access, more data, and ultimately greater profit.

McLaren Racing is all too aware of recent shifts in the cyber security landscape. A successful cyber-attack on our organisation could have implications on race-day performance, as well as our wider reputation. Last year, we brought in a new line of defence with Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI technology, that learns our business from the ground up, and interrupts subtle and fast-moving cyber-threats wherever they emerge – including from our supply chain.

Threat find: Attacking through the inbox

In this attack, 12 employees were targeted in a systematic phishing attack, receiving an email from a long-established team supplier, notifying them that a voicemail had been left for them.

Figure 2: An extract of the phishing email coaxing the recipient to click

The link to play the voicemail led to a legitimate-looking voicemail service site.

When following the link to access the message, the site requested Office 365 credentials to authenticate the user, designed to harvest the McLaren Racing credentials that could be used to access our environment.

Figure 3: The fake login page

Of the 12 recipients, several key people within our team were targeted, including technical directors and purchase ledgers. The attackers behind this phishing campaign no doubt hand-picked these individuals both due to their authorization powers and the likelihood their accounts had access to sensitive data.

Had these accounts been compromised, the attackers would have had access to some of the highest sensitivity of intellectual property, finance information and executive level strategy within racing.

Darktrace’s email security technology, Antigena Email, assessed the content of these emails as they were delivered, and identified several unusual indicators of attack. While it recognised that the account was one familiar to McLaren, it compared this attack with previous emails sent from the supplier and recognised several risk indicators. Darktrace Antigena autonomously took the decision to hold the email from being delivered to users’ mailboxes.

Figure 4: Antigena Email reveals in plain language why the email was suspicious and the action it took

Legitimate communication between our team and the supplier was still flowing uninterrupted, as Darktrace Antigena was assessing each email’s indicators for risk. The following day, the supplier’s account manager in our team received an email from the supplier in question, informing them that one of their accounts had been compromised and was used to send phishing emails to some of their customers. This confirmed that Antigena Email had correctly identified the email as malicious.

Traditional email security tools rely on historical attack data to determine friend from foe, but this is only effective in cases where an email domain or a malicious URL has been previously encountered. In this case, traditional filtering allowed the email through. Only by having Darktrace’s understanding of ‘self’ and Autonomous Response was McLaren able to avoid exposure to risk on this occasion.

This is reflective of a wider pattern noticed by the security team. Darktrace determines that around 40% of emails going through Antigena Email would have been detected by our other security tools, suggesting that Darktrace is detecting an extra 60% of malicious emails and taking action to ensure we are protected 24/7.

This was just one example of an attempted attack on McLaren through the inbox. On another occasion, Antigena Email identified an email that was attempting to impersonate a sponsor. The email in question was requesting that a senior McLaren Racing figure reset their password and contained a suspicious link that led to a credential harvester. Again, Antigena took action on the emails at time of delivery, and our internal cyber team never had to respond to what could have been a serious incident. It’s through Darktrace taking autonomous action like this on a daily basis that we are able to focus our time on higher-value, strategic work, driving success for the wider team.

Why the supply chain demands a new approach to security

In today’s digitised world, it is impossible to operate as a fluid, dynamic organisation without interacting with suppliers and partners at every digital layer: from email, to file sharing services and technology partners delivered through the cloud. As McLaren grows and works with leading global organisations to improve its performance, its supply chain ecosystem will only get broader.

Attackers are targeting suppliers because they represent a single key that opens potentially dozens or even hundreds of locks, and email is just one avenue of attack. By partnering with Darktrace, McLaren experiences the value of self-learning protection on a daily basis, across its email systems, cloud services, and corporate network.

Whether it’s email or some other form of communication from a supplier, you cannot assume you know who’s on the other side of the keyboard. This is what so many existing security defences do – with static rules and signatures unable to truly tell friend from foe and reveal account takeovers and compromised systems. Modern organisations need a solution that is able to identify potentially malicious activity from suppliers by analysing a broad range of indicators and revealing subtle deviations that indicate threat, and this is where Self-Learning AI shines.

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Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
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March 18, 2026

When Reality Diverges from the Playbook: Darktrace Identifies Encryption in a World Leaks Ransomware Attack

EaaS, World Leaks, a rebrand of Hunters International, are known for their extortion-only attack model, abandoning the tactic of file encryption. However, contrary to these claims, Darktrace detected a World Leaks compromise where a ransomware payload was deployed, and customer data was encrypted.Default blog imageDefault blog image

As-a-Service Cybercrime Models

As-a-Service cybercrime models reduce the barrier to entry for cyber criminals as they no longer need expertise in every domain. Threat actors can increasingly outsource or supplement missing skills through the broader cybercrime-as-a-service ecosystem, and thus these models continue to grow in popularity within the cybercriminal underground. This has led to multiple templates in this sphere, such as Phishing-as-a-Service, Botnet-as-a-Service, DDoS-as-a-Service, and notably Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) [1].

What is Extortion-as-a-Service?

Extortion-as-a-Service (EaaS) businesses function as a formalized way for cyber threat actors to offer extortion services to others for a fee or profit share and represents an evolution of extortion operations from the double-extortion ransomware model. Advancing from the RaaS model, extortion has become a distinct profit stream, separate from the encryption payload. This separation of functions, data theft, negotiation, and publicity, sets the stage for EaaS [1].

The EaaS model reflects a broader trend in cybercriminal activity, in which threat actors increasingly prioritize data theft and public exposure over traditional ransomware encryption. This shift reduces operational complexity while increasing pressure on victims through reputational damage. This approach has become increasingly popular among threat actors as, unlike encryption-based attacks, these operations are more difficult to detect and remediate [2]. It reflects a trend of ‘hack-and-leak’ operations that prioritize stealth, speed, and reputational damage over traditional encryption-based ransomware attacks [3].

World Leaks Overview

World Leaks emerged in early 2024 as a direct rebrand of the Hunters International ransomware group, which was notorious for encrypting victims’ data and demanding payment for decryption keys. In mid-2025, Hunters International shifted to an extortion-only model due to law enforcement scrutiny and reduced profitability, rebranding itself as World Leaks.

World Leaks functions as an affiliate-based EaaS operation which provides proprietary Storage Software exfiltration tooling to affiliates while maintaining a four-platform infrastructure consisting of a main data leak site hosted on the Dark Web where victim data is published, a victim negotiation portal with live chat, an affiliate management panel, and an insider journalist platform granting media outlets 24-hour advance access to stolen data before public release [4]. Since its emergence, World Leaks has published data stolen from dozens of organizations globally on its data leak site, serving both as a pressure tactic and a means for building reputation among cyber criminals.

World Leaks (known associations include Hive Ransomware, Secp0 Ransomware, and UNC6148) have been known to target the industrial (manufacturing) sector, along with healthcare organizations, technology firms and more generally, industries with valuable intellectual property [4]. Victims targeted have spanned multiple countries, with most located in the US, as well as Canada and several countries across Europe [5].

World Leaks’ Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) [3][4]

World Leaks’ typical attack pattern involves the exploitation of credentials with inadequate access controls, e.g. lacking multi-factor authentication (MFA), moving through reconnaissance, lateral movement and data exfiltration, notably without an encryption element.

Initial Access:

Initial access is typically gained through the exploitation of compromised virtual private network (VPN) credentials lacking MFA through valid accounts, as well as phishing campaigns. The targeting of internet-facing VPN infrastructure, RDP, and public-facing applications also represent common attack vectors in World Leaks incidents.

Lateral Movement:

SMB, RDP, and SSH are used for lateral movement via remote services. Notably, the group is also known to use PsExec and Rclone as part of their lateral movement activities.

Persistence:

Registry key modifications, scheduled tasks creation, account manipulation.

Exfiltration:

Data exfiltration is carried out through custom storage software tooling via TOR connections. Cloud storage services used for exfiltration particularly include MEGA. World Leaks also carry out direct data transfer through established command-and-control (C2) infrastructure.

Unlike Hunters International, which combined encryption with extortion, World Leaks claims to have abandoned the use of encryption. Some reports note that operations since January 2025 represent a pivot toward eliminating encryption entirely, instead relying on custom exfiltration tooling with SOCKSv5 proxy and TOR-based communications [4]. However, in early 2026, Darktrace detected an incident that directly contradicted this claim: World Leaks carried out an attack that involved both the exfiltration and encryption of customer data.

Darktrace’s Coverage of World Leaks Ransomware

Organizations today face a growing challenge: keeping pace with increasingly fast-moving threats. This incident highlights a common problem, when time-limited mitigations expire or human security teams cannot respond quickly enough, attackers are often able to regain the upper hand. A recent Darktrace detection of World Leaks ransomware provides a clear example of this challenge in practice.

In January 2026, Darktrace identified the presence of ransomware and data encryption linked to World Leaks within the network of an organization within the healthcare sector. Although Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability was active in the customer’s environment and initially blocking suspicious connectivity, buying time for the customer to remediate, the attack continued once these mitigative actions expired. Darktrace continued to apply Autonomous Response actions as the attack progressed, working to inhibit the attackers at each stage of the intrusion.

Investigations carried out by Darktrace revealed that threat actors likely gained initial access via a Fortigate appliance in mid-October, indicating a three-month dwell time, before employing living-off-the-land (LOTL) techniques for lateral movement. C2 communications were established using Cloudflare Tunnel (formerly Argo Tunnel). As part of the Actions on Objectives attack phase, a significant volume of data was exfiltrated to the MEGA cloud storage platform, followed by the encryption of customer data.

Initial access/ Lateral movement

Darktrace analysts identified the likely patient-zero device within the network as a Fortigate appliance. In October 2025, this device was seen conducting brute-force activity using the compromised ‘administrator’ credential to gain a foothold deeper within the customer’s environment. Masquerading as a privileged user, the threat actor then went on to launch activity on remote devices via PsExec, a common administrative tool that allows users to execute processes on remote systems without manually installing client software, providing significant power to attackers when abused. Around the time, Darktrace detected an unknown device on the network attempting to authenticate via NTLM. As this device had not previously been seen on the network, it likely belonged to the attacker.

Reconnaissance

As part of the reconnaissance phase of the attack, port and network scanning was carried out in an attempt to identify open UDP and TCP ports within the network.

Lateral movement & C2

Around one month after entering the customer’s network, the World Leaks threat actors began tunnelling activity using Cloudflare Tunnel. Darktrace detected connections to several hostnames including: region2.v2.argotunnel[.]com; h2.cftunnel[.]com; region1.v2.argotunnel[.]com. This tunnelling activity continued until January of 2026, when encryption occurred. Cloudflare tunnels are known to be abused by attackers as they enable the use of temporary infrastructure to scale operations, allowing rapid deployment and teardown. Furthermore, leveraging of Cloudflare’s infrastructure to create these rate-limited tunnels (used to relay traffic from an attacker-controlled server to a local machine) makes such malicious activity harder to detect by both defenders and traditional security measures, particularly those that rely on static blocklists [6].

Further lateral movement was carried out using common remote management tools such as Windows Remote Management (WinRM) RDP, allowing the World Leaks threat actors to access local devices within the victim organization’s network.

As this attack progressed, Darktrace detected multiple files being written over SMB. These files included Windows\Temp\chromeremotedesktophost.msi, which was written from the patient-zero device to another internal device as part of lateral movement efforts. Following this transfer, and prior to subsequent data exfiltration activity, a network server was observed connecting to the hostname remotedesktop-pa[.]googleapis[.]com, an API endpoint required for Chrome Remote Desktop, indicating that Chrome RDP was used by the threat actor in this stage of the attack.

Other files written over SMB included the script programdata\syc\OpenSSHUtils.psm1 (which can be used legitimately to configure OpenSSH) and the executable programdata\syc\ssh‑sk‑helper.exe (a legitimate OpenSSH component used to support security keys). These files were written from the suspected patient‑zero device to an internal domain controller using the ‘administrator’ credential.

Thereafter, SSH connections to external IP address 51.15.109[.]222 were observed, providing another channel between the malicious actors and victim machines. Darktrace recognized that the use of SSH by the devices seen connecting to this IP address was highly anomalous, indicating that this suspicious activity formed part of the attack.

Writes of the script programdata\syc\OpenSSHUtils.psm1 were also observed into January, highlighting the continuation of the attack that had begun three months earlier.

On December 19 and 20, Darktrace detected a DNS server within the customer’s network making anomalous outgoing connections to an external IP address not previously seen in the environment: 193.161.193[.]99. This IP address has been reported by open-source-intelligence (OSINT) as being associated with C2 infrastructure, having been linked to several remote access trojans (RATs) and botnets in the past.

This activity a shift towards the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model, underscoring the growing trend around As-a-Service Cybercrime models and the increasing the industrialization of botnets. The presence of extensive digital botnets, often leased to other criminal organizations, means the group gaining initial access is not necessarily the same group conducting ransomware deployment or data theft; botnets now act as shared underlying infrastructure enabling multiple forms of cybercriminal activity [7].

Furthermore, connections to this IP address (193.161.193[.]99) were made over port 1194, which is associated with OpenVPN, suggesting that World Leaks may have leveraged it to obfuscate C2 communication with attacker-controlled infrastructure.

Darktrace’s detection of the IP address 193.161.193[.]99, noting that it was first seen within the customer’s network on December 19, 2025.
Figure 1: Darktrace’s detection of the IP address 193.161.193[.]99, noting that it was first seen within the customer’s network on December 19, 2025.

Data exfiltration

In November, Darktrace detected the threat actors carrying out one of their Attack on Objective tactics: data exfiltration. Multiple local devices within the compromised network began transferring data to Backblaze and MEGA domains, both of which provide cloud storage services; 80+GB of data was transferred to MEGA in late December 2025. Endpoints associated with this activity included: backblazeb2[.]com and gfs302n520[.]userstorage[.]mega[.]co[.]nz, as well as related user agents such as AS40401 BACKBLAZE) and MegaClient/10.3.0/64.

Notably, Darktrace researchers identified two known World Leaks TTPs in this attack: the use of MEGA, a known tool abused by the group, and Rclone, a command-line tool used to manage files on cloud storage, which was observed in the user agent of the MEGA data-transfer connections: rclone/v1.69.0 [4].

Cyber AI Analyst Incident highlighting data upload activity to backblaze[.]com endpoints.
Figure 2: Cyber AI Analyst Incident highlighting data upload activity to backblaze[.]com endpoints.\

Ransomware deployment & encryption

The encryption stage of this attack was confirmed by the presence of a ransom note found on the network in a file with a seemingly randomized nine-character string preceding README.txt, attributing the incident to World Leaks, along with an extension with the same nine characters appended to encrypted files. Darktrace also observed SMB writes of files named world.exe and task.bat, with the compromised ‘localadmin’ credential used during the SMB logins. It is likely that these files served as the vector for the ransomware payload.

 Packet Capture (PCAP) of the ransom note claiming that the attack was carried out by World Leaks.
Figure 3: Packet Capture (PCAP) of the ransom note claiming that the attack was carried out by World Leaks.

Conclusion

Though traditional ransomware relies on encryption, recent trends show that cyber threat actors no longer need to rely on noisy encryption tools and can eliminate much of the risk and technical complexity associated with encrypting systems. This is the model reportedly preferred by World Leaks after their rebrand from Hunters International.

In addition to reducing noise around these attacks, extortion‑only operations may be favored by threat actors over encryption‑focused ones for several reasons, including the fact that traditional security tools may struggle to detect data theft compared to encryption, that attackers leave less evidence behind when encryption is avoided, and that the long‑term impacts of stolen data on organizations can be greater than the loss of systems caused by encryption processes, which can be restored [8]. This is supported by analysis of data leak sites suggesting that almost 1,500 incidents in 2025 relied on data theft alone. Attackers can simply steal victim data and attempt to extort a ransom by threatening to publish it, without needing to deploy ransomware at all [9]. Furthermore, although World Leaks aims to function as an affiliate‑based EaaS operation, security teams should remain aware that their affiliates may have different criminal objectives.

Contrary to reports that World Leaks’ typical attack style has an extortion‑only objective, Darktrace detected an incident in which a World Leaks attack did end with the encryption of customer data. This highlights the need for adaptive defenses and reinforces the importance of network defenders staying proactive in the face of attacks, particularly as they may progress in ways that are unexpected compared to previous trends associated with a given threat actor.

Credit to Tiana Kelly (Senior Cyber Analyst and Analyst Manager) and Emily Megan Lim (Senior Cyber Analyst)

Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)

Appendices

IoCs

  • world.exe – Executable File – Possible Ransomware Payload
  • task.bat – Script File – Possible Ransomware Payload
  • ‘^[A-Z][a-z]{3}[A-Z][a-z][A-Z]{3}[.]README[.]txt' – Ransom Note
  • [.]^[A-Z][a-z]{3}[A-Z][a-z][A-Z]{3} – Ransomware file extension

·       51.15.109[.]222 – IP Address - Possible C2 Infrastructure

·       193.161.193[.]99 – IP Address – Probable C2 Infrastructure

Darktrace Model Detections (Enhanced Monitoring models denoted with an asterisk)

·      Device / Attack and Recon Tools

·      Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

·      Device / Anomalous NTLM Brute Force

·      Compliance / Connection to Tunnelling Service

·      Device / Suspicious New User Agents

·      Device / New or Unusual Remote Command Execution

·      Compliance / SMB Drive Write

·      Anomalous Connection / Uncommon 1 GiB Outbound

·      Compromise / Ransomware / Ransom or Offensive Words Written to SMB

·      Device / Multiple Lateral Movement Model Alerts*

·      Device / SMB Lateral Movement

·      Unusual Activity / Sustained Anomalous SMB Activity

·      Device / Large Number of Model Alerts

·      Compromise / Ransomware / SMB Reads then Writes with Additional Extensions

·      Compromise / Ransomware / Suspicious SMB Activity*

·      Anomalous File / Internal / Additional Extension Appended to SMB File

·      Unusual Activity / SMB Access Failures

·      Unusual Activity / Enhanced Unusual External Data Transfer*

·      Device / Suspicious File Writes to Multiple Hidden SMB Shares

·      Anomalous Server Activity / Rare External from Server

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual Mega Data Transfer*

·      Device / Possible SMB/NTLM Brute Force

·      Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin RDP Session

·      Anomalous Connection / Active Remote Desktop Tunnel

·      Anomalous Connection / Data Sent to Rare Domain

·      Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Control

·      Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Enumeration

·      Anomalous Connection / Rare WinRM Outgoing

·      Anomalous Connection / SMB Enumeration

·      Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin RDP Session

·      Anomalous Connection / Unusual Incoming Long Remote Desktop Session

·      Anomalous Connection / Upload via Remote Desktop

·      Anomalous File / Internal / Executable Uploaded to DC

·      Anomalous File / Internal / Unusual SMB Script Write

·      Compliance / SSH to Rare External Destination

·      Device / Anomalous Github Download

·      Device / Anonymous NTLM Logins

·      Device / Network Scan

·      Device / New or Uncommon WMI Activity

·      Device / New User Agent To Internal Server

·      Device / Possible Brute-Force Activity

·      Device / RDP Scan

·      Device / SMB Session Brute Force (Admin)

·      Device / SMB Session Brute Force (Non-Admin)

·      Device / Suspicious Network Scan Activity

·      Unusual Activity / Successful Admin Brute-Force Activity

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data to New Endpoint

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data Transfer

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual File Storage Data Transfer

·      User / New Admin Credentials on Server

Cyber AI Analyst Incidents

·      Scanning of Multiple Devices

·      Large Volume of SMB Login Failures to Multiple Devices

·      Suspicious Chain of Administrative Connections

·      SMB Write of Suspicious File

·      Suspicious DCE-RPC Activity

·      Unusual External Data Transfer

·      Unusual External Data Transfer to Multiple Related Endpoints

·      Unusual External Data Transfer to Endpoints

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

·      Initial Access – T1190 – Exploit Public-Facing Application

·      Defense Evasion, Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation – T1078 – Valid Accounts

·      Resource Development – T1588.001 – Obtain Capabilities: Malware

·      Reconnaissance – T1590.005 – Gather Victim Network Information: IP Addresses

·      Reconnaissance – T1592.004 – Gather Victim Host Information: Client Configurations

·      Reconnaissance – T1595.001 – Active Scanning: Scanning IP Blocks

·      Reconnaissance – T1595.002 – Active Scanning: Vulnerability Scanning

·      Reconnaissance – T1595.003 – Active Scanning: Wordlist Scanning

·      Discovery – T1018 – Remote System Discovery

·      Discovery – T1046 – Network Service Discovery

·      Discovery – T1083 – File and Directory Discovery

·      Discovery – T1135 – Network Share Discovery

·      Command and Control – T1219 – Remote Access Tools

·      Command and Control – T1219.002 – Remote Access Tools: Remote Desktop Software

·      Command and Control – T1571 – Non-Standard Port

·      Command and Control – T1572 – Protocol Tunneling

·      Command and Control – T1573.001 – Encrypted Channel: Symmetric Cryptography

·      Credential Access – T1110 – Brute Force

·      Credential Access – T1110.001 – Brute Force: Password Guessing

·      Defense Evasion – T1006 – Direct Volume Access

·      Defense Evasion – T1564.005 – Hide Artifacts: Hidden File System

·      Defense Evasion – T1564.012 – Hide Artifacts: File/Path Exclusions

·      Execution – T1047 – Windows Management Instrumentation

·      Execution – T1569.002 – System Services: Service Execution

·      Lateral Movement – T1021 – Remote Services

·      Lateral Movement – T1021.001 – Remote Services: Remote Desktop Protocol

·      Lateral Movement – T1021.002 – Remote Services: SMB/Windows Admin Shares

·      Lateral Movement – T1021.006 – Remote Services: Windows Remote Management

·      Lateral Movement – T1080 – Taint Shared Content

·      Lateral Movement – T1210 – Exploitation of Remote Services

·      Lateral Movement – T1570 – Lateral Tool Transfer

·      Collection – T1039 – Data from Network Shared Drive

·      Collection – T1074 – Data Staged

·      Exfiltration – T1041 – Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

·      Exfiltration – T1048 – Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol

·      Exfiltration – T1567.002 – Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage

References

[1] https://www.levelblue.com/blogs/levelblue-blog/extortion-as-a-service-the-latest-threat-actor-criminal-ecosystem/

[2] https://blackpointcyber.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/World-Leaks.pdf

[3] https://blackpointcyber.com/threat-profile/world-leaks-ransomware/

[4] https://www.halcyon.ai/threat-group/worldleaks

[5] https://www.moxfive.com/resources/moxfive-threat-actor-spotlight-world-leaks

[6] https://thehackernews.com/2024/08/cybercriminals-abusing-cloudflare.html

[7] https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/tw/security/news/threat-landscape/the-industrialization-of-botnets-automation-and-scale-as-a-new-threat-infrastructure

[8] https://www.morphisec.com/blog/ransomware-without-encryption-why-pure-exfiltration-attacks-are-surging-and-why-theyre-so-hard-to-catch/

[9] https://sed-cms.broadcom.com/sites/default/files/2026-01/RWN-2026-WP100_1.pdf

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About the author
Tiana Kelly
Senior Cyber Analyst & Team Lead

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March 11, 2026

NetSupport RAT: How Legitimate Tools Can Be as Damaging as Malware

NetSupport RAT: How Legitimate Tools Can Be as Damaging as MalwareDefault blog imageDefault blog image

What is NetSupport Manager?

NetSupport Manager is a legitimate IT tool used by system administrators for remote support, monitoring, and management. In use since 1989, NetSupport Manager enables users to remotely access and navigate systems across different platforms and operating systems [1].

What is NetSupport RAT?

Although NetSupport Manager is a legitimate tool that can be used by IT and security professionals, there has been a rising number of cases in which it is abused to gain unauthorized access to victim systems. This misuse has become so prevalent that, in recent years, security researchers have begun referring to NetSupport as a Remote Access Trojan (RAT), a term typically used for malware that enables a threat actor to remotely access or control an infected device [2][3][4].

NetSupport RAT activity summary

The initial stages of NetSupport RAT infection may vary depending on the source of the initial compromise. Using tactics such as the social engineering tactic ClickFix, threat actors attempt to trick users into inadvertently executing malicious PowerShell commands under the guise of resolving a non-existent issue or completing a fake CAPTCHA verification [5]. Other attack vectors such as phishing emails, fake browser updates, malicious websites, search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning, malvertising and drive-by downloads are also employed to direct users to fraudulent pages and fake reCAPTCHA verification checks, ultimately inducing them to execute malicious PowerShell commands [5][6][7]. This leads to the successful installation of NetSupport Manager on the compromised device, which is often placed in non-standard directories such as AppData, ProgramData, or Downloads [3][8].

Once installed, the adversary is able to gain remote access to the affected machine, monitor user activity, exfiltrate data, communicate with the command-and-control (C2) server, and maintain persistence [5]. External research has also highlighted that post-exploitation of NetSupport RAT has involved the additional download of malicious payloads [2][5].

Attack flow diagram highlighting key events across each phase of the attack phase
Figure 1: Attack flow diagram highlighting key events across each phase of the attack phase [2][5].

Darktrace coverage

In November of 2025, suspicious behavior indicative of the malicious abuse of NetSupport Manager was observed on multiple customers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and the Americas (AMS).

While open-source intelligence (OSINT) has reported that, in a recent campaign, a threat actor impersonated government entities to trick users in organizations in the Information Technology, Government and Financial Services sectors in Central Asia into downloading NetSupport Manager [8], approximately a third of Darktrace’s affected customers in November were based in the US while the rest were based in EMEA. This contrast underscores how widely NetSupport Manager is leveraged by threat actors and highlights its accessibility as an initial access tool.  

The Darktrace customers affected were in sectors including Information and Communication, Manufacturing and Arts, entertainment and recreation.

The ClickFix social engineering tactic typically used to distribute the NetSupport RAT is known to target multiple industries, including Technology, Manufacturing and Energy sectors [9]. It also reflects activity observed in the campaign targeting Central Asia, where the Information Technology sector was among those affected [8].

The prevalence of affected Education customers highlights NetSupport’s marketing focus on the Education sector [10]. This suggests that threat actors are also aware of this marketing strategy and have exploited the trust it creates to deploy NetSupport Manager and gain access to their targets’ systems. While the execution of the PowerShell commands that led to the installation of NetSupport Manager falls outside of Darktrace's purview in cases identified, Darktrace was still able to identify a pattern of devices making connections to multiple rare external domains and IP addresses associated with the NetSupport RAT, using a wide range of ports over the HTTP protocol. A full list of associated domains and IP addresses is provided in the Appendices of this blog.

Although OSINT identifies multiple malicious domains and IP addresses as used as C2 servers, signature-based detections of NetSupport RAT indicators of compromise (IoCs) may miss broader activity, as new malicious websites linked to the RAT continue to appear.

Darktrace’s anomaly‑based approach allows it to establish a normal ‘pattern of life’ for each device on a network and identify when behavior deviates from this baseline, enabling the detection of unusual activity even when it does not match known IoCs or tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs).

In one customer environment in late 2025, Darktrace / NETWORK detected a device initiating new connections to the rare external endpoint, thetavaluemetrics[.]com (74.91.125[.]57), along with the use of a previously unseen user agent, which it recognized as highly unusual for the network.

Darktrace’s detection of HTTP POST requests to a suspicious URI and new user agent usage.
Figure 2: Darktrace’s detection of HTTP POST requests to a suspicious URI and new user agent usage.

Darktrace identified that user agent present in connections to this endpoint was the ‘NetSupport Manager/1.3’, initially suggesting legitimate NetSupport Manager activity. Subsequent investigation, however, revealed that the endpoint was in fact a malicious NetSupportRAT C2 endpoint [12]. Shortly after, Darktrace detected the same device performing HTTP POST requests to the URI fakeurl[.]htm. This pattern of activity is consistent with OSINT reporting that details communication between compromised devices and NetSupport Connectivity Gateways functioning as C2 servers [11].

Conclusion

As seen not only with NetSupport Manager but with any legitimate or open‑source software used by IT and security professionals, the legitimacy of a tool does not prevent it from being abused by threat actors. Open‑source software, especially tools with free or trial versions such as NetSupport Manager, remains readily accessible for malicious use, including network compromise. In an age where remote work is still prevalent, validating any anomalous use of software and remote management tools is essential to reducing opportunities for unauthorized access.

Darktrace’s anomaly‑based detection enables security teams to identify malicious use of legitimate tools, even when clear signatures or indicators of compromise are absent, helping to prevent further impact on a network.


Credit to George Kim (Analyst Consulting Lead – AMS), Anna Gilbertson (Senior Cyber Analyst)

Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

Appendices

Darktrace Model Alerts

·       Compromise / Suspicious HTTP and Anomalous Activity

·       Compromise / New User Agent and POST

·       Device / New User Agent

·       Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname

·       Anomalous Connection / Posting HTTP to IP Without Hostname

·       Anomalous Connection / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint

·       Anomalous Connection / Application Protocol on Uncommon Port

·       Anomalous Connection / Multiple HTTP POSTs to Rare Hostname

·       Compromise / Beaconing Activity To External Rare

·       Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination

·       Compromise / Agent Beacon (Medium Period)

·       Compromise / Agent Beacon (Long Period)

·       Compromise / Quick and Regular Windows HTTP Beaconing

·       Compromise / Sustained TCP Beaconing Activity To Rare Endpoint

·       Compromise / POST and Beacon to Rare External

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

Indicator           Type     Description

/fakeurl.htm URI            NetSupportRAT C2 URI

thetavaluemetrics[.]com        Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

westford-systems[.]icu            Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

holonisz[.]com                Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

heaveydutyl[.]com      Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

nsgatetest1[.]digital   Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

finalnovel[.]com            Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

217.91.235[.]17              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

45.94.47[.]224                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

74.91.125[.]57                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

88.214.27[.]48                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

104.21.40[.]75                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

38.146.28[.]242              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

185.39.19[.]233              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

45.88.79[.]237                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

141.98.11[.]224              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

88.214.27[.]166              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

107.158.128[.]84          IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

87.120.93[.]98                 IP             Rhadamanthys C2 Endpoint

References

  1. https://mspalliance.com/netsupport-debuts-netsupport-24-7/
  2. https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/11/netsupport-rat-the-rat-king-returns.html
  3. https://redcanary.com/threat-detection-report/threats/netsupport-manager/
  4. https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/8.19/netsupport-manager-execution-from-an-unusual-path.html
  5. https://rewterz.com/threat-advisory/netsupport-rat-delivered-through-spoofed-verification-pages-active-iocs
  6. https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/new-evalusion-clickfix-campaign.html
  7. https://corelight.com/blog/detecting-netsupport-manager-abuse
  8. https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/bloody-wolf-expands-java-based.html
  9. https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/preventing-clickfix-attack-vector
  10. https://www.netsupportsoftware.com/education-solutions
  11. https://www.esentire.com/blog/unpacking-netsupport-rat-loaders-delivered-via-clickfix
  12. https://threatfox.abuse.ch/browse/malware/win.netsupportmanager_rat/
  13. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/5fe6936a69c786c9ded9f31ed1242c601cd64e1d90cecd8a7bb03182c47906c2

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About the author
George Kim
Analyst Consulting Lead – AMS
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