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April 9, 2024
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Moving Beyond XDR to Achieve True Cyber Resilience with Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform

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09
Apr 2024
Announcing the new Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform designed to transform security operations. This approach gives security teams unprecedented visibility across any area where Darktrace is deployed, including cloud, email, network, endpoints, and operational technology (OT).

Evolving Threats Need Comprehensive Security

Attacker innovations have drastically increased the velocity, sophistication, and success of cyber security attacks, as seen with multi-domain and multi-stage attacks that are now widely used in adversary methodology.

When it comes to defense, traditional cyber security point solutions cannot keep up. They have a depth of intelligence in a specific domain but rely on existing attack data to detect threats. This allows the known to be stopped, but the uncertainty in identifying unknown threats creates an alert deluge. Security teams are then required to build processes to triage alerts, and manually combine data through APIs, integrations and rules – just to correlate incidents across multiple IT domains.

Traditional eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) rose to aid security teams, and while they are able to stitch together suspicious events from network, endpoint, and cloud, they still lack adequate domain coverage in areas such as email – where the majority of initial infection occurs – require human validation, prioritization, and triage, and ultimately remain reactive in nature.

Security teams are at a breaking point, with too many alerts, too little time, and fragmented support from a bloated vendor stack. Simply put, most organizations lack the human resources needed to maintain cyber resilience.

Introducing the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform

Darktrace ActiveAI Security was designed to transform security operations to a proactive state. Its AI trains on an organization’s specific business and IT information, learning the day-to-day normal operations, not yesterday's threat intelligence.

This approach gives security teams unprecedented visibility across any area where Darktrace is deployed, including cloud, email, network, endpoints, identities, and operational technology (OT). With this understanding of the business, the AI can detect and respond to known and unknown threats with precision, even those threats never seen before.

Darktrace’s proactive and incident response tools help your team get ahead of security gaps and potential process risk by understanding your internal and external threat surfaces and identifying where preparedness can be improved.

A unique and patented investigative AI, called Cyber AI Analyst, operates across the platform to augment human teams with automation and efficiency gains, performing continuous investigations of prevalent alerts to redefine the SecOps workflow and help security analysts arrive at decisions quickly.  An extensive range of services aid customer resources in getting the most out of the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform.

Figure 1: Powered by a self-learning AI that understands your unique business, the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform provides coverage across the entire enterprise. Cyber AI Analyst, our investigative AI, investigates relevant alerts helping human security teams triage and prioritize all relevant alerts, even those from 3rd party security tools, to transform security operations.

Security operations and the incident lifecycle

SOC teams have three general areas of focus, and each can be supported by Darktrace ActiveAI Security

1. The benefits of being proactive

Darktrace ActiveAI Security helps teams become proactive by identifying and closing gaps before they are exploited. This reduces the impact and cost of attacks.  

The platform achieves this by looking at each organization to understand potential human and machine entry points for an attacker. In an upcoming update, our technology will also include firewall rule analysis for more precise attack path modeling.

The AI considers its findings with local business and IT context to identify the most risky and impactful devices, identities, and vulnerabilities, so teams can prioritize what to patch first.

Additionally, Darktrace ActiveAI Security boosts proactivity with incident readiness, supporting each organization’s people, processes, and technology with training simulations, dynamic playbooks, and readiness reports.

2. Complete visibility of known and novel threats

Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform drives efficiencies during the active incident phase, saving time and effort while providing comprehensive and tailored protection. It applies context from enterprise data, ingested from both native sources (email, cloud, operational technology, endpoints, identity, applications, and networks) and external sources (third-party security tools and intelligence) to detect known, novel, and unknown threats.

Other security vendors aggregate and generalize data across their customers, treating threat detection with a big data approach. They extract intelligence, write new rules and signatures, and train their supervised machine running in the cloud. Only after that do they distribute new detections based on the changes in the threat landscape. That leaves a window of opportunity for attackers. For example, when Log4J struck, most vendors needed precious time to catch up and defend against it

Contrast that to Darktrace’s approach to detection. Our AI continuously trains on each organization’s unique business data, allowing it to function beyond known attacks in the threat landscape. Therefore, our AI can defend organizations even against attacks that have never been seen before because it focuses on each customer’s data instead of trying to win this big data problem.

While our AI has always been able to surface threats without needing to decrypt traffic, because it can surface anomalies in the characteristics of the overall communication, an upcoming update will soon make decryption possible for deeper forensic analysis.

This also leads to massive efficiency wins. For example, self-regulation and detection accuracy. If our AI keeps seeing certain types of anomalies in an environment, and if those are part of a legitimate business process, the AI will autonomously start lowering the alert severity, therefore reducing the burden on security teams to fine-tune detection and alerting.

3. AI-led investigation and response

Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform helps teams triage, investigate, and respond to accelerate response time and reduce disruption.

Traditional security stacks use a lot of raw data combined with threat intelligence, like rules and signatures and supervised detections. The results are then put together and presented to the human team, who still needs to triage, understand, and investigate the situation.

Darktrace customers natively ingest raw data, apply anomaly detection and business learning, then build chains of generic anomalies which could include threat intelligence of third-party alerts. Those are then continuously investigated by our Cyber AI Analyst and put forward for human verification and actioning of next steps if they are deemed critical. This simplifies the triage process to save investigation time.

An upcoming feature for the Cyber AI Analyst allows teams to customize how it investigates each threat type, such as configuring what type of hypotheses are being run – giving teams more control. The result is a complete transformation of the triage process, where every relevant alert is investigated for the security team, those critical are prioritized for action, others await secondary investigation, or allow analysts to proactively review security gaps to stop future attacks of the same attack paths.

Last but not least, we help drive efficiencies by automating threat response with behavioral containment. That means our AI can identify and stop unusual behavior that indicates a threat while still allowing normal benign business activity to continue, all without the security team’s having to predefine every conceivable reaction.

Conclusion

Darktrace ActiveAI Security is a native, holistic, AI-driven platform built on over ten years of AI research. It helps security teams shift to more a productive mode, finding known and unknown attacks and transforming the SOC to drive efficiency gains. It does this across the whole incident lifecycle to lower risk, reduce time spent on active incidents, and drive return on investment.

For more information on the Darktrace Platform, download the solution brief here.

Join over 9,000 customers who have started their journey to the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform by selecting one of our leading cybersecurity solutions in Email Security, Network Detection and Response, Cloud Native Application Protection, and OT Security.

Discover more about our ever-strengthening platform with the upcoming changes coming to Darktrace/Email and Darktrace/OT.

Learn about the intersection of cyber and AI by downloading the State of AI Cyber Security 2024 report to discover global findings that may surprise you, insights from security leaders, and recommendations for addressing today’s top challenges that you may face, too.

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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Mitchell Bezzina
VP, Product and Solutions Marketing
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January 14, 2025

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Ransomware

RansomHub Ransomware: Darktrace’s Investigation of the Newest Tool in ShadowSyndicate's Arsenal

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What is ShadowSyndicate?

ShadowSyndicate, also known as Infra Storm, is a threat actor reportedly active since July 2022, working with various ransomware groups and affiliates of ransomware programs, such as Quantum, Nokoyawa, and ALPHV. This threat actor employs tools like Cobalt Strike, Sliver, IcedID, and Matanbuchus malware in its attacks. ShadowSyndicate utilizes the same SSH fingerprint (1ca4cbac895fc3bd12417b77fc6ed31d) on many of their servers—85 as of September 2023. At least 52 of these servers have been linked to the Cobalt Strike command and control (C2) framework [1].

What is RansomHub?

First observed following the FBI's takedown of ALPHV/BlackCat in December 2023, RansomHub quickly gained notoriety as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operator. RansomHub capitalized on the law enforcement’s disruption of the LockBit group’s operations in February 2024 to market themselves to potential affiliates who had previously relied on LockBit’s encryptors. RansomHub's success can be largely attributed to their aggressive recruitment on underground forums, leading to the absorption of ex-ALPHV and ex-LockBit affiliates. They were one of the most active ransomware operators in 2024, with approximately 500 victims reported since February, according to their Dedicated Leak Site (DLS) [2].

ShadowSyndicate and RansomHub

External researchers have reported that ShadowSyndicate had as many as seven different ransomware families in their arsenal between July 2022, and September 2023. Now, ShadowSyndicate appears to have added RansomHub’s their formidable stockpile, becoming an affiliate of the RaaS provider [1].

Darktrace’s analysis of ShadowSyndicate across its customer base indicates that the group has been leveraging RansomHub ransomware in multiple attacks in September and October 2024. ShadowSyndicate likely shifted to using RansomHub due to the lucrative rates offered by this RaaS provider, with affiliates receiving up to 90% of the ransom—significantly higher than the general market rate of 70-80% [3].

In many instances where encryption was observed, ransom notes with the naming pattern “README_[a-zA-Z0-9]{6}.txt” were written to affected devices. The content of these ransom notes threatened to release stolen confidential data via RansomHub’s DLS unless a ransom was paid. During these attacks, data exfiltration activity to external endpoints using the SSH protocol was observed. The external endpoints to which the data was transferred were found to coincide with servers previously associated with ShadowSyndicate activity.

Darktrace’s coverage of ShadowSyndicate and RansomHub

Darktrace’s Threat Research team identified high-confidence indicators of compromise (IoCs) linked to the ShadowSyndicate group deploying RansomHub. The investigation revealed four separate incidents impacting Darktrace customers across various sectors, including education, manufacturing, and social services. In the investigated cases, multiple stages of the kill chain were observed, starting with initial internal reconnaissance and leading to eventual file encryption and data exfiltration.

Attack Overview

Timeline attack overview of ransomhub ransomware

Internal Reconnaissance

The first observed stage of ShadowSyndicate attacks involved devices making multiple internal connection attempts to other internal devices over key ports, suggesting network scanning and enumeration activity. In this initial phase of the attack, the threat actor gathers critical details and information by scanning the network for open ports that might be potentially exploitable. In cases observed by Darktrace affected devices were typically seen attempting to connect to other internal locations over TCP ports including 22, 445 and 3389.

C2 Communication and Data Exfiltration

In most of the RansomHub cases investigated by Darktrace, unusual connections to endpoints associated with Splashtop, a remote desktop access software, were observed briefly before outbound SSH connections were identified.

Following this, Darktrace detected outbound SSH connections to the external IP address 46.161.27[.]151 using WinSCP, an open-source SSH client for Windows used for secure file transfer. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identified this IP address as malicious and associated it with ShadowSyndicate’s C2 infrastructure [4]. During connections to this IP, multiple gigabytes of data were exfiltrated from customer networks via SSH.

Data exfiltration attempts were consistent across investigated cases; however, the method of egress varied from one attack to another, as one would expect with a RaaS strain being employed by different affiliates. In addition to transfers to ShadowSyndicate’s infrastructure, threat actors were also observed transferring data to the cloud storage and file transfer service, MEGA, via HTTP connections using the ‘rclone’ user agent – a command-line program used to manage files on cloud storage. In another case, data exfiltration activity occurred over port 443, utilizing SSL connections.

Lateral Movement

In investigated incidents, lateral movement activity began shortly after C2 communications were established. In one case, Darktrace identified the unusual use of a new administrative credential which was quickly followed up with multiple suspicious executable file writes to other internal devices on the network.

The filenames for this executable followed the regex naming convention “[a-zA-Z]{6}.exe”, with two observed examples being “bWqQUx.exe” and “sdtMfs.exe”.

Cyber AI Analyst Investigation Process for the SMB Writes of Suspicious Files to Multiple Devices' incident.
Figure 1: Cyber AI Analyst Investigation Process for the SMB Writes of Suspicious Files to Multiple Devices' incident.

Additionally, script files such as “Defeat-Defender2.bat”, “Share.bat”, and “def.bat” were also seen written over SMB, suggesting that threat actors were trying to evade network defenses and detection by antivirus software like Microsoft Defender.

File Encryption

Among the three cases where file encryption activity was observed, file names were changed by adding an extension following the regex format “.[a-zA-Z0-9]{6}”. Ransom notes with a similar naming convention, “README_[a-zA-Z0-9]{6}.txt”, were written to each share. While the content of the ransom notes differed slightly in each case, most contained similar text. Clear indicators in the body of the ransom notes pointed to the use of RansomHub ransomware in these attacks. As is increasingly the case, threat actors employed double extortion tactics, threatening to leak confidential data if the ransom was not paid. Like most ransomware, RansomHub included TOR site links for communication between its "customer service team" and the target.

Figure 2: The graph shows the behavior of a device with encryption activity, using the “SMB Sustained Mimetype Conversion” and “Unusual Activity Events” metrics over three weeks.

Since Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability was not enabled during the compromise, the ransomware attack succeeded in its objective. However, Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst provided comprehensive coverage of the kill chain, enabling the customer to quickly identify affected devices and initiate remediation.

Figure 3: Cyber AI Analyst panel showing the critical incidents of the affected device from one of the cases investigated.

In lieu of Autonomous Response being active on the networks, Darktrace was able to suggest a variety of manual response actions intended to contain the compromise and prevent further malicious activity. Had Autonomous Response been enabled at the time of the attack, these actions would have been quickly applied without any human interaction, potentially halting the ransomware attack earlier in the kill chain.

Figure 4: A list of suggested Autonomous Response actions on the affected devices."

Conclusion

The Darktrace Threat Research team has noted a surge in attacks by the ShadowSyndicate group using RansomHub’s RaaS of late. RaaS has become increasingly popular across the threat landscape due to its ease of access to malware and script execution. As more individual threat actors adopt RaaS, security teams are struggling to defend against the increasing number of opportunistic attacks.

For customers subscribed to Darktrace’s Security Operations Center (SOC) services, the Analyst team promptly investigated detections of the aforementioned unusual and anomalous activities in the initial infection phases. Multiple alerts were raised via Darktrace’s Managed Threat Detection to warn customers of active ransomware incidents. By emphasizing anomaly-based detection and response, Darktrace can effectively identify devices affected by ransomware and take action against emerging activity, minimizing disruption and impact on customer networks.

Credit to Kwa Qing Hong (Senior Cyber Analyst and Deputy Analyst Team Lead, Singapore) and Signe Zahark (Principal Cyber Analyst, Japan)

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections

Antigena Models / Autonomous Response:

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena Network Scan Block

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena SMB Enumeration Block

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena Internal Anomalous File Activity

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena Large Data Volume Outbound Block

Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Significant Anomaly from Client Block

Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Breaches Over Time Block

Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Controlled and Model Breach

Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Significant Server Anomaly Block

Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Enhanced Monitoring from Server Block

Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious Activity Block

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

Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block


Network Reconnaissance:

Device / Network Scan

Device / ICMP Address Scan

Device / RDP Scan
Device / Anomalous LDAP Root Searches
Anomalous Connection / SMB Enumeration
Device / Spike in LDAP Activity

C2:

Enhanced Monitoring - Device / Lateral Movement and C2 Activity

Enhanced Monitoring - Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise

Enhanced Monitoring - Compromise / Suspicious File and C2

Compliance / Remote Management Tool On Server

Anomalous Connection / Outbound SSH to Unusual Port


External Data Transfer:

Enhanced Monitoring - Unusual Activity / Enhanced Unusual External Data Transfer

Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data Transfer

Anomalous Connection / Data Sent to Rare Domain

Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data to New Endpoint

Compliance / SSH to Rare External Destination

Anomalous Connection / Application Protocol on Uncommon Port

Enhanced Monitoring - Anomalous File / Numeric File Download

Anomalous File / New User Agent Followed By Numeric File Download

Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server

Device / Large Number of Connections to New Endpoints

Anomalous Connection / Multiple HTTP POSTs to Rare Hostname

Anomalous Connection / Uncommon 1 GiB Outbound

Lateral Movement:

User / New Admin Credentials on Server

Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Control

Anomalous Connection / High Volume of New or Uncommon Service Control

Anomalous File / Internal / Executable Uploaded to DC

Anomalous Connection / Suspicious Activity On High Risk Device

File Encryption:

Compliance / SMB Drive Write

Anomalous File / Internal / Additional Extension Appended to SMB File

Compromise / Ransomware / Possible Ransom Note Write

Anomalous Connection / Suspicious Read Write Ratio

List of Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence

83.97.73[.]198 - IP - Data exfiltration endpoint

108.181.182[.]143 - IP - Data exfiltration endpoint

46.161.27[.]151 - IP - Data exfiltration endpoint

185.65.212[.]164 - IP - Data exfiltration endpoint

66[.]203.125.21 - IP - MEGA endpoint used for data exfiltration

89[.]44.168.207 - IP - MEGA endpoint used for data exfiltration

185[.]206.24.31 - IP - MEGA endpoint used for data exfiltration

31[.]216.148.33 - IP - MEGA endpoint used for data exfiltration

104.226.39[.]18 - IP - C2 endpoint

103.253.40[.]87 - IP - C2 endpoint

*.relay.splashtop[.]com - Hostname - C2 & data exfiltration endpoint

gfs***n***.userstorage.mega[.]co.nz - Hostname - MEGA endpoint used for data exfiltration

w.api.mega[.]co.nz - Hostname - MEGA endpoint used for data exfiltration

ams-rb9a-ss.ams.efscloud[.]net - Hostname - Data exfiltration endpoint

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic - Technqiue

RECONNAISSANCE – T1592.004 Client Configurations

RECONNAISSANCE – T1590.005 IP Addresses

RECONNAISSANCE – T1595.001 Scanning IP Blocks

RECONNAISSANCE – T1595.002 Vulnerability Scanning

DISCOVERY – T1046 Network Service Scanning

DISCOVERY – T1018 Remote System Discovery

DISCOVERY – T1083 File and Directory Discovery
INITIAL ACCESS - T1189 Drive-by Compromise

INITIAL ACCESS - T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application

COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1001 Data Obfuscation

COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1071 Application Layer Protocol

COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1071.001 Web Protocols

COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1573.001 Symmetric Cryptography

COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1571 Non-Standard Port

DEFENSE EVASION – T1078 Valid Accounts

DEFENSE EVASION – T1550.002 Pass the Hash

LATERAL MOVEMENT - T1021.004 SSH

LATERAL MOVEMENT – T1080 Taint Shared Content

LATERAL MOVEMENT – T1570 Lateral Tool Transfer

LATERAL MOVEMENT – T1021.002 SMB/Windows Admin Shares

COLLECTION - T1185 Man in the Browser

EXFILTRATION - T1041 Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

EXFILTRATION - T1567.002 Exfiltration to Cloud Storage

EXFILTRATION - T1029 Scheduled Transfer

IMPACT – T1486 Data Encrypted for Impact

References

1.     https://www.group-ib.com/blog/shadowsyndicate-raas/

2.     https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/news/366617096/ESET-RansomHub-most-active-ransomware-group-in-H2-2024

3.     https://cyberint.com/blog/research/ransomhub-the-new-kid-on-the-block-to-know/

4.     https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/AA24-131A.stix_.xml

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About the author
Qing Hong Kwa
Senior Cyber Analyst and Deputy Analyst Team Lead, Singapore

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January 14, 2025

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Email

Why AI-powered Email Protection Became Essential for this Global Financial Services Leader

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When agile cyber-attackers don’t stop, but pivot  

When he first joined this leading financial services provider, it was clear to the CISO that email security needed to be a top priority. The organization provides transfer services to millions of consumers via a network of thousands of agent locations across the US. Those agents are connected to hundreds of thousands of global payers to complete consumer transfers, ranging from leading financial institutions to small local businesses.

With this vast network of agents and payers, the provider relies on email as its primary communications channel. Transmitting billions of dollars every year, the organization is a prime target for cyber criminals looking to steal credentials, financial assets, and sensitive data.

Vulnerable to attacks with gaps in email security and visibility

The CISO discovered that employees were under constant attack by phishing emails impersonating his company’s own executives. The business email compromise (BEC) attacks were designed to deceive employees into sharing credentials or clicking on malicious links.

Upon discovering that their Microsoft 365 tenant lacked secure configuration, the CISO implemented necessary changes to strengthen the service, including enabling authentication controls. While his efforts significantly reduced BEC attacks, cyber criminals changed their tactics, sending employees malicious phishing emails from seemingly valid email accounts from trusted domains like Google and Yahoo. The emails passed through the organization’s native email filters without detection.

The CISO also sought to strengthen defenses against third-party supply chain attacks that could originate with any of the hundreds of thousands of third-party agents and payers the company works with around the world. While the larger institutions typically have sophisticated email security strategies in place, the smaller businesses may lack the cybersecurity expertise needed to effectively secure and manage their data, putting the organization at risk.

While the CISO knew the company was vulnerable to phishing and third-party threats, he didn’t have visibility across the flow of email. Without access to key metrics and valuable data, he couldn’t get the crucial insights needed to quickly identify possible threats and adjust security protocols.  

Skilled analysts bogged down with low-level tasks

Like many enterprise organizations, this leading financial services provider relied on a crew of highly skilled analysts to respond to alerts and analyze and triage emails most of their workday. “That shouldn’t be how we operate,” said the CISO. “My role and the role of my staff should be to focus on more strategic projects, support the business, and work on important new product development.”

Balancing user experience with mitigating threats

Enabling greater email security measures without negatively impacting the business, user experience, and customer satisfaction was a daunting challenge the CISO and his security team faced. Imposing restrictions that are too stringent could restrict communication, delay the delivery of important messages, or block legitimate emails – potentially slowing down money transfers, frustrating customers, affecting employee productivity, and impacting revenue. However, maintaining controls that are too permissive could result in serious outcomes like data theft, financial fraud, operational disruption, compliance penalties, and customer attrition.  

Self-Learning AI is a game changer

After conducting a thorough POC with several modern security solution providers, this global financial services provider chose the Darktrace / EMAIL an AI-driven email security platform. The CISO said they chose the solution for two key reasons:

First, Darktrace / EMAIL offers modern capabilities

  • Self-Learning AI uses business data to recognize anomalies in communication patterns and user behavior to stop known and unknown threats
  • Secures the organization’s entire mailflow across all inbound, outbound, and lateral email
  • Protects against account takeover attacks by identifying subtle anomalies in cloud SaaS
  • Catches sophisticated threats like impersonations, session token misuse, adversary-in-the-middle attacks, credential theft, and data exfiltration

Second, they pointed to Darktrace’s experience, innovation, and expertise

  • Deep cybersecurity and industry knowledge
  • Demonstrated customers successes worldwide
  • At the forefront of innovation and research, establishing new thresholds in cybersecurity, with technology advances backed by over 200 patents and pending applications

Moreover, and most importantly, this organization trusted Darktrace to deliver on its promises.  And according to the CISO, that’s just what happened.

Significantly reduced phishing threats and business risk

Since implementing Darktrace / EMAIL, the threat posed by BEC attacks has dropped sharply. “Phishing is not an issue that concerns me anymore. I estimate we are now identifying and blocking more than 85% of threats our previous solution was missing,” said the CISO. The biggest factor contributing to this success? The power of AI.

With Darktrace / EMAIL, this leadingglobal financial services provider is identifying and blocking more than 85% ofthe phishing email threats its previous solution missed.

AI wasn’t originally on the financial service provider’s list of criteria. But after seeing AI in action and understanding its potential to vastly scale their detection and response capabilities–without adding headcount, the CISO determined AI wasn’t an option but an imperative. “AI is essential when it comes to email security, it’s an absolute necessity,” he said.  

Darktrace / EMAIL’s Self-Learning AI is uniquely powerful because it learns the content and context of every internal and external user and can spot the subtle differences in behavioral patterns that point to possible social engineering attacks. Through patented behavioral anomaly detection, Darktrace / EMAIL continuously learns about the organization’s business and users, based on its own operations and data, adjusting security protocols accordingly.  

For example, when clients are transferring large amounts of money, they are required to send photos of their driver’s licenses and passports via email to the organization for verification – accounting for a large percentage of its’ inbound email. Darktrace / EMAIL recognizes that it’s normal for customers to send this sensitive information, and it also knows that it’s not normal for that same sensitive information to leave the organization via outbound mail. In addition, Darktrace identifies patterns in user behavior, including who employees communicate with and what kind of information they share. When user behavior falls outside of established norms, such as an email sent from the CFO to employees the CEO would not typically communicate with, Darktrace can take the appropriate action to remove the threat.  

“After the implementation, we gave the solution two weeks to ingest our data and learn the specifics of our business. After that, it was perfect, just amazing,” said the CISO.  

Boosted team productivity and elevated value to the business

With Darktrace / EMAIL, the organization has successfully scaled its detection and response efforts without scaling personnel. The security team has reduced the number of emails requiring manual investigation by 90%. And because analysts now have the benefit of Darktrace / EMAIL’s analytics and reporting, the investigation process is much easier and faster. “The impact of this solution on my team has been very positive,” said the CISO. “Darktrace / EMAIL essentially manages itself, freeing up time for our skilled analysts–and for myself–to focus on more important projects.”  

The security team has scaled its detection and response efforts without scaling personnel,reducing the number of emails it manually investigates by 90%

Increased visibility delivers business-critical insights

You can’t control what you can’t see, and with zero visibility into critical data and metrics, this financial services provider was at a serious disadvantage. That has all changed. “Something that I love about Darktrace / EMAIL is the visibility that it provides into key metrics from a single dashboard. We can now understand the behavior of our email flow and data traffic and can make insight-driven decisions to continuously optimize our email security. It’s awesome,” said the CISO.  

An efficient user interface also improves productivity and reduces mean time to action by enabling teams to easily visualize key data points and quickly evaluate what actions need to be taken. Darktrace / EMAIL was developed with that experience in mind, allowing users to access data and take quick action without having to constantly log into the solution.

Keeping the business focused on cybersecurity

The leadership of this global organization takes information security very seriously, understanding that cyber-attacks aren’t just an IT problem but a business problem. When it came to evaluating Darktrace, the CISO said numerous stakeholders were involved including C-level executives, infrastructure, and IT, which operates separately from information security. The CISO initially identified the need, conducted the market research, engaged the target vendors, and then brought the other decision makers into the process for the solution evaluation and final decision. “Our IT group, infrastructure team, CTO and CEO are all involved when it comes to making major cybersecurity investments. We always try to make these decisions jointly to ensure we are taking everything into consideration.”

The organization has reached a higher level of maturity when it comes to email cybersecurity. The ability to automate routine email detection and investigation tasks has both strengthened the organization’s cyber resilience and enabled the CISO and his team to contribute more to the business. His advice for other IT leaders facing the same email security and visibility challenges he once experienced: “For those companies that need greater insight and control over their email but have limited resources and people, AI is the answer.”  

Darktrace / Email solution brief screenshot

Secure Your Inbox with Cutting-Edge AI Email Protection

Discover the most advanced cloud-native AI email security solution to protect your domain and brand while preventing phishing, novel social engineering, business email compromise, account takeover, and data loss.

  • Gain up to 13 days of earlier threat detection and maximize ROI on your current email security
  • Experience 20-25% more threat blocking power with Darktrace / EMAIL
  • Stop the 58% of threats bypassing traditional email security

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