February 29, 2024

Protecting Against AlphV BlackCat Ransomware

Learn how Darktrace AI is combating AlphV BlackCat ransomware, including the details of this ransomware and how to protect yourself from it.

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

Inside the SOC

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

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

Feb 2024

As-a-Service malware trending

Throughout the course of 2023, “as-a-Service” strains of malware remained the most consistently observed threat type to affect Darktrace customers, mirroring their overall prominence across the cyber threat landscape. With this trend expected to continue throughout 2024, organizations and their security teams should be prepared to defend their network against increasingly versatile and tailorable malware-as-a-service (MaaS) and ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) strains [1].

What is ALPHV ransomware?

The ALPHV ransomware, also known as ‘BlackCat’ or ‘Noberus’, is one example of a RaaS strain that has been prominent across the threat landscape over the last few years.

ALPHV is a ransomware strain coded in the Rust programming language. The ransomware is sold as part of the RaaS economy [2], with samples of the ransomware being provided and sold by a criminal group (the RaaS ‘operator’) to other cybercriminals (the RaaS ‘affiliates’) who then gain entry to organizations' networks with the intention of detonating the ransomware and demanding ransom payments.

ALPHV was likely first used in the wild back in November 2021 [3]. Since then, it has become one of the most prolific ransomware strains, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reporting nearly USD 300 million in ALPHV ransom payments as of September 2023 [4].

In December 2023, the FBI and the US Department of Justice announced a successful disruption campaign against the ALPHV group, which included a takedown of the their data leak site, and the release of a decryption tool for the ransomware strain [5], and in February 2024, the US Department of State announced a reward of up to USD 10 million for information leading to the identification or location of anyone occupying a key leadership position in the group operating the ALPHV ransomware strain [6].

The disruption campaign against the ransomware group appeared to have been successful, as evidenced by the recent, significant decline in ALPHV attacks, however, it would not be surprising for the group to simply return with new branding, in a similar vein to its apparent predecessors, DarkSide and BlackMatter [7].

How does ALPHV ransomware work?

ALPHV affiliates have been known to employ a variety of methods to progress towards their objective of detonating ALPHV ransomware [4]. In the latter half of 2023, ALPHV affiliates were observed using malicious advertising (i.e, malvertising) to deliver a Python-based backdoor-dropper known as 'Nitrogen' to users' devices [8][12]. These malvertising operations consisted in affiliates setting up malicious search engine adverts for tools such as WinSCP and AnyDesk.

Users' interactions with these adverts led them to sites resembling legitimate software distribution sites. Users' attempts to download software from these spoofed sites resulted in the delivery of a backdoor-dropping malware sample dubbed 'Nitrogen' to their devices. Nitrogen has been observed dropping a variety of command-and-control (C2) implants onto users' devices, including Cobalt Strike Beacon and Sliver C2. ALPHV affiliates often used the backdoor access afforded to them by these C2 implants to conduct reconnaissance and move laterally, in preparation for detonating ALPHV ransomware payloads.

Darktrace Detection of ALPHV Ransomware

During October 2023, Darktrace observed several cases of ALPHV affiliates attempting to infiltrate organizations' networks via the use of malvertising to socially engineer users into downloading and installing Nitrogen from impersonation websites such as 'wireshhark[.]com' and wìnscp[.]net (i.e, xn--wnscp-tsa[.]net).

While the attackers managed to bypass traditional security measures and evade detection by using a device from the customer’s IT team to perform its malicious activity, Darktrace DETECT™ swiftly identified the subtle indicators of compromise (IoCs) in the first instance. This swift detection of ALPHV, along with Cyber AI Analyst™ autonomously investigating the wide array of post-compromise activity, provided the customer with full visibility over the attack enabling them to promptly initiate their remediation and recovery efforts.

Unfortunately, in this incident, Darktrace RESPOND™ was not fully deployed within their environment, hindering its ability to autonomously counter emerging threats. Had RESPOND been fully operational here, it would have effectively contained the attack in its early stages, avoiding the eventual detonation of the ALPHV ransomware.

Figure 1: Timeline of the ALPHV ransomware attack.

In mid-October, a member of the IT team at a US-based Darktrace customer attempted to install the network traffic analysis software, Wireshark, onto their desktop. Due to the customer’s configuration, Darktrace's visibility over this device was limited to its internal traffic, despite this it was still able to identify and alert for a string of suspicious activity conducted by the device.

Initially, Darktrace observed the device making type A DNS requests for 'wiki.wireshark[.]org' immediately before making type A DNS requests for the domain names 'www.googleadservices[.]com', 'allpcsoftware[.]com', and 'wireshhark[.]com' (note the two 'h's). This pattern of activity indicates that the device’s user was redirected to the website, wireshhark[.]com, as a result of the user's interaction with a sponsored Google Search result pointing to allpcsoftware[.]com.

At the time of analysis, navigating to wireshhark[.]com directly from the browser search bar led to a YouTube video of Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up". This suggests that the website, wireshhark[.]com, had been configured to redirect users to this video unless they had arrived at the website via the relevant sponsored Google Search result [8].

Although it was not possible to confirm this with certainty, it is highly likely that users who visited the website via the appropriate sponsored Google Search result were led to a fake website (wireshhark[.]com) posing as the legitimate website, wireshark[.]com. It seems that the actors who set up this fake version of wireshark[.]com were inspired by the well-known bait-and-switch technique known as 'rickrolling', where users are presented with a desirable lure (typically a hyperlink of some kind) which unexpectedly leads them to a music video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up".

After being redirected to wireshhark[.]com, the user unintentionally installed a malware sample which dropped what appears to be Cobalt Strike onto their device. The presence of Cobalt Strike on the user's desktop was evidenced by the subsequent type A DNS requests which the device made for the domain name 'pse[.]ac'. These DNS requests were responded to with the likely Cobalt Strike C2 server address, 194.169.175[.]132. Given that Darktrace only had visibility over the device’s internal traffic, it did not observe any C2 connections to this Cobalt Strike endpoint. However, the desktop's subsequent behavior suggests that a malicious actor had gained 'hands-on-keyboard' control of the device via an established C2 channel.

Figure 2: Advanced Search data showing an customer device being tricked into visiting the fake website, wireshhark[.]com.

Since the malicious actor had gained control of an IT member's device, they were able to abuse the privileged account credentials to spread Python payloads across the network via SMB and the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) service. The actor was also seen distributing the Windows Sys-Internals tool, PsExec, likely in an attempt to facilitate their lateral movement efforts. It was normal for this IT member's desktop to distribute files across the network via SMB, which meant that this malicious SMB activity was not, at first glance, out of place.

Figure 3: Advanced Search data showing that it was normal for the IT member's device to distribute files over SMB.

However, Darktrace DETECT recognized that the significant spike in file writes being performed here was suspicious, even though, on the surface, it seemed ‘normal’ for the device. Furthermore, Darktrace identified that the executable files being distributed were attempting to masquerade as a different file type, potentially in an attempt to evade the detection of traditional security tools.

Figure 4: Event Log data showing several Model Breaches being created in response to the IT member's DEVICE's SMB writes of Python-based executables.

An addition to DETECT’s identification of this unusual activity, Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst launched an autonomous investigation into the ongoing compromise and was able to link the SMB writes and the sharing of the executable Python payloads, viewing the connections as one lateral movement incident rather than a string of isolated events. After completing its investigation, Cyber AI Analyst was able to provide a detailed summary of events on one pane of glass, ensuring the customer could identify the affected device and begin their remediation.

Figure 5: Cyber AI Analyst investigation summary highlighting the IT member's desktop’s lateral movement activities.

C2 Activity

The Python payloads distributed by the IT member’s device were likely related to the Nitrogen malware, as evidenced by the payloads’ names and by the network behaviours which they engendered.

Figure 6: Advanced Search data showing the affected device reaching out to the C2 endpoint, pse[.]ac, and then distributing Python-based executable files to an internal domain controller.

The internal devices to which these Nitrogen payloads were distributed immediately went on to contact C2 infrastructure associated with Cobalt Strike. These C2 connections were made over SSL on ports 443 and 8443. Darktrace identified the attacker moving laterally to an internal SQL server and an internal domain controller.

Figure 7: Advanced Search data showing an internal SQL server contacting the Cobalt Strike C2 endpoint, 194.180.48[.]169, after receiving Python payloads from the IT member’s device.

Figure 8: Event Log data showing several DETECT model breaches triggering in response to an internal SQL server’s C2 connections to 194.180.48[.]169.

Once more, Cyber AI Analyst launched its own investigation into this activity and was able to successfully identify a series of separate SSL connections, linking them together into one wider C2 incident.

Figure 9: Cyber AI Analyst investigation summary highlighting C2 connections from the SQL server.

Darktrace observed the attacker using their 'hands-on-keyboard' access to these systems to elevate their privileges, conduct network reconnaissance (primarily port scanning), spread Python payloads further across the network, exfiltrate data from the domain controller and transfer a payload from GitHub to the domain controller.

Figure 10: Cyber AI Analyst investigation summary an IP address scan carried out by an internal domain controller.

Figure 12: Event Log data showing an internal domain controller contacting GitHub around the time that it was in communication with the C2 endpoint, 194.180.48[.]169.

Figure 13: Event Log data showing a DETECT model breach being created in response to an internal domain controller's large data upload to the C2 endpoint, 194.180.48[.]169.

After conducting extensive reconnaissance and lateral movement activities, the attacker was observed detonating ransomware with the organization's VMware environment, resulting in the successful encryption of the customer’s VMware vCenter server and VMware virtual machines. In this case, the attacker took around 24 hours to progress from initial access to ransomware detonation.

If the targeted organization had been signed up for Darktrace's Proactive Threat Notification (PTN) service, they would have been promptly notified of these suspicious activities by the Darktrace Security Operations Center (SOC) in the first instance, allowing them to quickly identify affected devices and quarantine them before the compromise could escalate.

Additionally, given the quantity of high-severe alerts that triggered in response to this attack, Darktrace RESPOND would, under normal circumstances, have inhibited the attacker's activities as soon as they were identified by DETECT. However, due to RESPOND not being configured to act on server devices within the customer’s network, the attacker was able to seamlessly move laterally through the organization's server environment and eventually detonate the ALPHV ransomware.

Nevertheless, Darktrace was able to successfully weave together multiple Cyber AI Analyst incidents which it generated into a thread representing the chain of behavior that made up this attack. The thread of Incident Events created by Cyber AI Analyst provided a substantial account of the attack and the steps involved in it, which significantly facilitated the customer’s post-incident investigation efforts.

Figure 14: Darktrace's AI Analyst weaved together 33 of the Incident Events it created together into a thread representing the attacker’s chain of behavior.

Conclusion

It is expected for malicious cyber actors to revise and upgrade their methods to evade organizations’ improving security measures. The continued improvement of email security tools, for example, has likely created a need for attackers to develop new means of Initial Access, such as the use of Microsoft Teams-based malware delivery.

This fast-paced ALPHV ransomware attack serves as a further illustration of this trend, with the actor behind the attack using malvertising to convince an unsuspecting user to download the Python-based malware, Nitrogen, from a fake Wireshark site. Unbeknownst to the user, this stealthy malware dropped a C2 implant onto the user’s device, giving the malicious actor the ‘hands-on-keyboard’ access they needed to move laterally, conduct network reconnaissance, and ultimately detonate ALPHV ransomware.

Despite the non-traditional initial access methods used by this ransomware actor, Darktrace DETECT was still able to identify the unusual patterns of network traffic caused by the attacker’s post-compromise activities. The large volume of alerts created by Darktrace DETECT were autonomously investigated by Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst, which was able to weave together related activities of different devices into a comprehensive timeline of the attacker’s operation. Given the volume of DETECT alerts created in response to this ALPHV attack, it is expected that Darktrace RESPOND would have autonomously inhibited the attacker’s operation had the capability been appropriately configured.

As the first post-compromise activities Darktrace observed in this ALPHV attack were seemingly performed by a member of the customer’s IT team, it may have looked normal to a human or traditional signature and rules-based security tools. To Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI, however, the observed activities represented subtle deviations from the device’s normal pattern of life. This attack, and Darktrace’s detection of it, is therefore a prime illustration of the value that Self-Learning AI can bring to the task of detecting anomalies within organizations’ digital estates.

Credit to Sam Lister, Senior Cyber Analyst, Emma Foulger, Principal Cyber Analyst

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Zero-day exploitation: The rise of previously unknown vulnerabilities
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Appendices

Darktrace DETECT Model Breaches

- Compliance / SMB Drive Write

- Compliance / High Priority Compliance Model Breach

- Anomalous File / Internal / Masqueraded Executable SMB Write

- Device / New or Uncommon WMI Activity

- Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Control

- Anomalous Connection / High Volume of New or Uncommon Service Control

- Device / New or Uncommon SMB Named Pipe

- Device / Multiple Lateral Movement Model Breaches

- Device / Large Number of Model Breaches

- SMB Writes of Suspicious Files (Cyber AI Analyst)

- Suspicious Remote WMI Activity (Cyber AI Analyst)

- Suspicious DCE-RPC Activity (Cyber AI Analyst)

- Compromise / Connection to Suspicious SSL Server

- Compromise / High Volume of Connections with Beacon Score

- Anomalous Connection / Suspicious Self-Signed SSL

- Anomalous Connection / Anomalous SSL without SNI to New External

- Compromise / Suspicious TLS Beaconing To Rare External

- Compromise / Beacon to Young Endpoint

- Compromise / SSL or HTTP Beacon

- Compromise / Agent Beacon to New Endpoint

- Device / Long Agent Connection to New Endpoint

- Compromise / SSL Beaconing to Rare Destination

- Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Successful Connections

- Compromise / Slow Beaconing Activity To External Rare

- Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server

- Device / Multiple C2 Model Breaches

- Possible SSL Command and Control (Cyber AI Analyst)

- Unusual Repeated Connections (Cyber AI Analyst)

- Device / ICMP Address Scan

- Device / RDP Scan

- Device / Network Scan

- Device / Suspicious Network Scan Activity

- Scanning of Multiple Devices (Cyber AI Analyst)

- ICMP Address Scan (Cyber AI Analyst)

- Device / Anomalous Github Download

- Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data Transfer

- Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Resource Development techniques:

- Acquire Infrastructure: Malvertising (T1583.008)

Initial Access techniques:

- Drive-by Compromise (T1189)

Execution techniques:

- User Execution: Malicious File (T1204.002)

- System Services: Service Execution (T1569.002)

- Windows Management Instrumentation (T1047)

Defence Evasion techniques:

- Masquerading: Match Legitimate Name or Location (T1036.005)

Discovery techniques:

- Remote System Discovery (T1018)

- Network Service Discovery (T1046)

Lateral Movement techniques:

- Remote Services: SMB/Windows Admin Shares

- Lateral Tool Transfer (T1570)

Command and Control techniques:

- Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001)

- Encrypted Channel: Asymmetric Cryptography (T1573.002)

- Non-Standard Port (T1571)

- Ingress Tool Channel (T1105)

Exfiltration techniques:

- Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041)

Impact techniques:

- Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486)

List of Indicators of Compromise

- allpcsoftware[.]com

- wireshhark[.]com

- pse[.]ac • 194.169.175[.]132

- 194.180.48[.]169

- 193.42.33[.]14

- 141.98.6[.]195

References

[1] https://darktrace.com/threat-report-2023

[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2022/05/09/ransomware-as-a-service-understanding-the-cybercrime-gig-economy-and-how-to-protect-yourself/

[3] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/alphv-blackcat-this-years-most-sophisticated-ransomware/

[4] https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-353a

[5] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-prolific-alphvblackcat-ransomware-variant

[6] https://www.state.gov/u-s-department-of-state-announces-reward-offers-for-criminal-associates-of-the-alphv-blackcat-ransomware-variant/

[7] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/blackcat-alphv-ransomware-linked-to-blackmatter-darkside-gangs/

[8] https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/23/f/malvertising-used-as-entry-vector-for-blackcat-actors-also-lever.html

[9] https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2023/07/26/into-the-tank-with-nitrogen/

[10] https://www.esentire.com/blog/persistent-connection-established-nitrogen-campaign-leverages-dll-side-loading-technique-for-c2-communication

[11] https://www.esentire.com/blog/nitrogen-campaign-2-0-reloads-with-enhanced-capabilities-leading-to-alphv-blackcat-ransomware

[12] https://www.esentire.com/blog/the-notorious-alphv-blackcat-ransomware-gang-is-attacking-corporations-and-public-entities-using-google-ads-laced-with-malware-warns-esentire

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

Inside the SOC

Written by

Sam Lister

Specialist Security Researcher

VP, Security & AI Strategy, Field CISO

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May 12, 2026

Resilience at the Speed of AI: Defending the Modern Campus with Darktrace

Why higher education is a different cybersecurity battlefield

After four decades in IT, now serving as both CIO and CISO, I’ve learned one simple truth: cybersecurity is never “done.” It’s a constant game of cat and mouse. Criminals evolve. Technologies advance. Regulations expand. But in higher education, the challenge is uniquely complex.

Unlike a bank or a military installation, we can’t lock down networks to a narrow set of approved applications. Higher education environments are open by design. Students collaborate globally, faculty conduct cutting-edge research, and administrators manage critical operations, all of which require seamless access to the internet, global networks, cloud platforms, and connected systems.

Combine that openness with expanding regulatory mandates and tight budgets, and the balancing act becomes clear.

Threat actors don’t operate under the same constraints. Often well-funded and sponsored by nation-states with significant resources, they’re increasingly organized, strategic, and innovative.

That sophistication shows up in the tactics we face every day, from social engineering and ransomware to AI-driven impersonation attacks. We’re dealing with massive volumes of data, countless signals, and a very small window between detection and damage.

No human team, no matter how talented or how numerous, can manually sift through that noise at the speed required.

Discovering a force multiplier

Nothing in cybersecurity is 100% foolproof. I never “set it and forget it.” But for institutions balancing rising threats and finite resources, the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform™ offers something incredibly valuable: peace of mind through speed and scale.

It closes the gap between detection and response in a way humans can’t possibly match. At the speed of light, it can quarantine, investigate, and contain anomalous activity.

I’ve purchased and deployed Darktrace three separate times at three different institutions because I’ve seen firsthand what it can do and what it enables teams like mine to achieve.

I first encountered Darktrace while serving as CIO for a large multi-campus college system. What caught my attention was Darktrace's Self-Learning AI, and its ability to learn what "normal" looked like across our network. Instead of relying solely on static signatures or rigid rules, Darktrace built a behavioral baseline unique to our environment and alerted us in real time when something simply didn’t look right.

In higher education, where strict lockdowns aren’t realistic, that behavioral model made all the difference. We deployed it across five campuses, and the impact was immediate. Operating 24/7, Darktrace surfaced threats in ways our team couldn’t replicate manually.

Over time, the Darktrace platform evolved alongside the changing threat landscape, expanding into intrusion prevention, cloud visibility, and email security. At subsequent institutions, including Washington College, Darktrace was one of my first strategic investments.

Revealing the hidden threat other tools missed

One of the most surprising investigations of my career involved a data leak. Leadership suspected sensitive information from high-level meetings was being exposed, but our traditional tools couldn’t provide any answers.

Using Darktrace’s deep network visibility, down to packet-level data, we traced unusual connections to our CCTV camera system, which had been configured with a manufacturer’s default password. A small group of employees had hacked into the CCTV cameras, accessed audio-enabled recordings from boardroom meetings, and stored copies locally.

No other tool in our environment could have surfaced those connections the way Darktrace did. It was a clear example of why using AI to deeply understand how your organization, systems, and tools normally behave, matters: threats and risks don’t always look the way we expect.

Elevating a D-rating into a A-level security program

When I arrived at my last CISO role, the institution had recently experienced a significant ransomware attack. Attackers located data which informed their setting ransom demands to an amount they knew would likely result in payment. It was a sobering example of how calculated and strategic modern cybercriminals have become.

Third-party cyber ratings reflected that reality, with a D rating.

To raise the bar, we implemented a comprehensive security program and integrated layered defenses; -deploying state of the art tools and methods- across the environment, with Darktrace at its core.

After a 90-day learning period to establish our behavioral baseline, we transitioned the platform into fully autonomous mode. In a single 30-day span, Darktrace conducted more than 2,500 investigations and autonomously resolved 92% of all false positives.

For a small team, that’s transformative. Instead of drowning in alerts, my staff focused on less than 200 meaningful cases that warranted human review.

Today, we maintain a perfect A rating from third-party assessors and have remained cybersafe.

Peace of mind isn’t about complacency

The effect of Darktrace as a force multiplier has a real human impact.

With the time reclaimed through automation, we expanded community education programs and implemented simulated phishing exercises. Through sustained training and awareness efforts, we reduced social engineering susceptibility from nearly 45% to under 5%.

On a personal level, Darktrace allows me to sleep better at night and take time off knowing we have intelligent systems monitoring and responding around the clock. For any CIO or CISO carrying institutional risk on their shoulders, that matters.

The next era: AI vs. AI

A new chapter in cybersecurity is unfolding as adversaries leverage AI to enhance scale, speed, and believability. Phishing campaigns are more personalized, impersonation attempts are more precise, and deepfake video technology, including live video, is disturbingly authentic. At the same time, organizations are rapidly adopting AI across their own environments —from GenAI assistants to embedded tools to autonomous agents. These systems don’t operate within fixed rules. They act across email, cloud, SaaS, and identity systems, often with broad permissions, and their behavior can evolve over time in ways that are difficult to predict or control.

That creates a new kind of security challenge. It’s not just about defending against AI-powered threats but understanding and governing how AI behaves within your environment, including what it can access, how it acts, and where risk begins to emerge.

From my perspective, this is a natural next step for Darktrace.

Darktrace brings a level of maturity and behavioral understanding uniquely suited to the complexity of AI environments. Self-Learning AI learns the normal patterns of each business to interpret context, uncover subtle intent, and detect meaningful deviations without relying on predefined rules or signatures. Extending into securing AI by bringing real-time visibility and control to GenAI assistants, AI agents, development environments and Shadow AI, feels like the logical evolution of what Darktrace already does so well.

Just as importantly, Darktrace is already built for dynamic, cross-domain environments where risk doesn’t sit in a single tool or control plane. In higher education, activity already spans multiple systems and, with AI, that interconnection only accelerates.

Having deployed Darktrace multiple times, I have confidence it’s uniquely positioned to lead in this space and help organizations adopt AI with greater visibility and control.

‍

---

Since authoring this blog, Irving Bruckstein has transitioned to the role of Chief Executive Officer of the Cyberaigroup.

About the author

Irving Bruckstein

CEO CyberAIgroup

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May 11, 2026

The Next Step After Mythos: Defending in a World Where Compromise is Expected

Is Anthropic’s Mythos a turning point for cybersecurity?

Anthropic’s recent announcements around their Mythos model, alongside the launch of Project Glasswing, have generated significant interest across the cybersecurity industry.

The closed-source nature of the Mythos model has understandably attracted a degree of skepticism around some of the claims being made. Additionally, Project Glasswing was initially positioned as a way for software vendors to accelerate the proactive discovery of vulnerabilities in their own code; however, much of the attention has focused on the potential for AI to identify exploitable vulnerabilities for those with malicious intent.

Putting questions around the veracity of those claims to one side – which, for what it’s worth, do appear to be at least partially endorsed by independent bodies such as the UK’s AI Security Institute – this should not be viewed as a critical turning point for the industry. Rather, it reflects the natural direction of travel.

How Mythos affects cybersecurity teams

At Darktrace, extolling the virtues of AI within cybersecurity is understandably close to our hearts. However, taking a step back from the hype, we’d like to consider what developments like this mean for security teams.

Whether it’s Mythos or another model yet to be released, it’s worth remembering that there is no fundamental difference between an AI discovered vulnerability and one discovered by a human. The change is in the pace of discovery and, some may argue, the lower the barrier to entry.

In the hands of a software developer, this is unquestionably positive. Faster discovery enables earlier remediation and more proactive security. But in the hands of an attacker, the same capability will likely lead to a greater number of exploitable vulnerabilities being used in the wild and, critically, vulnerabilities that are not yet known to either the vendor or the end user.

That said, attackers have always been able to find exploitable vulnerabilities and use them undetected for extended periods of time. The use of AI does not fundamentally change this reality, but it does make the process faster and, unfortunately, more likely to occur at scale.

While tools such as Darktrace / Attack Surface Management and / Proactive Exposure Management can help security teams prioritize where to patch, the emergence of AI-driven vulnerability discovery reinforces an important point: patching alone is not a sufficient control against modern cyber-attacks.

Rethinking defense for a world where compromise is expected

Rather than assuming vulnerabilities can simply be patched away, defenders are better served by working from the assumption that their software is already vulnerable - and always will be -and build their security strategy accordingly.

Under that assumption, defenders should expect initial access, particularly across internet exposed assets, to become easier for attackers. What matters then is how quickly that foothold is detected, contained, and prevented from expanding.

For defenders, this places renewed emphasis on a few core capabilities:

Secure-by-design architectures and blast radius reduction, particularly around identity, MFA, segmentation, and Zero Trust principles

Early, scalable detection and containment, favoring behavioral and context-driven signals over signatures alone

Operational resilience, with the expectation of more frequent early-stage incidents that must be managed without burning out teams

How Darktrace helps organizations proactively defend against cyber threats

At Darktrace, we support security teams across all three of these critical capabilities through a multi-layered AI approach. Our Self-Learning AI learns what’s normal for your organization, enabling real-time threat detection, behavioral prediction, incident investigation and autonomous response. - all while empowering your security team with visibility and control. ‍

To learn more about Darktrace’s application of AI to cybersecurity download our White Paper here.

Reducing blast radius through visibility and control

Secure-by-design principles depend on understanding how users, devices, and systems behave. By learning the normal patterns of identity and network activity, Darktrace helps teams identify when access is being misused or when activity begins to move beyond expected boundaries. This makes it possible to detect and contain lateral movement early, limiting how far an attacker can progress even after initial access.

Detecting and containing threats at the earliest stage

As AI accelerates vulnerability discovery, defenders need to identify exploitation before it is formally recognized. Darktrace’s behavioral understanding approach enables detection of subtle deviations from normal activity, including those linked to previously unknown vulnerabilities.

A key example of this is our research on identifying cyber threats before public CVE disclosures, demonstrating that assessing activity against what is normal for a specific environment, rather than relying on predefined indicators of compromise, enables detection of intrusions exploiting previously unknown vulnerabilities days or even weeks before details become publicly available.

Additionally, our Autonomous Response capability provides fast, targeted containment focused on the most concerning events, while allowing normal business operations to continue. This has consistently shown that even when attackers use techniques never seen before, Darktrace’s Autonomous Response can contain threats before they have a chance to escalate.

Scaling response without increasing operational burden

As early-stage incidents become more frequent, the ability to investigate and respond efficiently becomes critical. Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst’s AI-driven investigation capabilities automatically correlate activity across the environment, prioritizing the most significant threats and reducing the need for manual triage. This allows security teams to respond faster and more consistently, without increasing workload or burnout.

What effective defense looks like in an AI-accelerated landscape

Developments like Mythos highlight a reality that has been building for some time: the window between exposure and exploitation is shrinking, and in many cases, it may disappear entirely. In that environment, relying on patching alone becomes increasingly reactive, leaving little room to respond once access has been established.

The more durable approach is to assume that compromise will occur and focus on controlling what happens next. That means identifying early signs of misuse, containing threats before they spread, and maintaining visibility across the environment so that isolated signals can be understood in context.

AI plays a role on both sides of this equation. While it enables attackers to move faster, it also gives defenders the ability to detect subtle changes in behavior, prioritize what matters, and respond in real time. The advantage will not come from adopting AI in isolation, but from applying it in a way that reduces the gap between detection and action.

AI may be accelerating parts of the attack lifecycle, but the fundamentals of defense, detection, and containment still apply. If anything, they matter more than ever – and AI is just as powerful a tool for defenders as it is for attackers.

‍

To learn more about Darktrace and Mythos read more on our blog: Mythos vs Ethos: Defending in an Era of AI‑Accelerated Vulnerability Discovery

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[related-resource]

About the author

Toby Lewis

Head of Threat Analysis

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Check out this article by Darktrace: Protecting Against AlphV BlackCat Ransomware

Protecting Against AlphV BlackCat Ransomware

As-a-Service malware trending

What is ALPHV ransomware?

How does ALPHV ransomware work?

Darktrace Detection of ALPHV Ransomware

C2 Activity

Conclusion

Get the latest insights on emerging cyber threats

Appendices

Darktrace DETECT Model Breaches

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

References

When Trust Becomes the Attack Surface: Supply-Chain Attacks in an Era of Automation and Implicit Trust

Resilience at the Speed of AI: Defending the Modern Campus with Darktrace

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