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October 14, 2024

Triaging Triada: Understanding an Advanced Mobile Trojan and How it Targets Communication and Banking Applications

Android-based malware like Triada is increasingly targeting banking and communication apps to steal sensitive data. Triada uses sophisticated methods to evade detection, exfiltrating data to C2 servers via algorithmically generated hostnames. This underscores the need for advanced security measures to protect against these evolving threats and safeguard user data.
Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Justin Torres
Cyber Analyst
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14
Oct 2024

The rise of android malware

Recently, there has been a significant increase in malware strains targeting mobile devices, with a growing number of Android-based malware families, such as banking trojans, which aim to steal sensitive banking information from organizations and individuals worldwide.

These malware families attempt to access users’ accounts to steal online banking credentials and cookies, bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA), and conduct automatic transactions to steal funds [1]. They often masquerade as legitimate software or communications from social media platforms to compromise devices. Once installed, they use tactics such as keylogging, dumping cached credentials, and searching the file system for stored passwords to steal credentials, take over accounts, and potentially perform identity theft [1].

One recent example is the Antidot Trojan, which infects devices by disguising itself as an update page for Google Play. It establishes a command-and-control (C2) channel with a server, allowing malicious actors to execute commands and collect sensitive data [2].

Despite these malware’s ability to evade detection by standard security software, for example, by changing their code [3], Darktrace recently detected another Android malware family, Triada, communicating with a C2 server and exfiltrating data.

Triada: Background and tactics

First surfacing in 2016, Triada is a modular mobile trojan known to target banking and financial applications, as well as popular communication applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Google Mail [4]. It has been deployed as a backdoor on devices such as CTV boxes, smartphones, and tablets during the supply chain process [5]. Triada can also be delivered via drive-by downloads, phishing campaigns, smaller trojans like Leech, Ztorg, and Gopro, or more recently, as a malicious module in applications such as unofficial versions of WhatsApp, YoWhatsApp, and FM WhatsApp [6] [7].

How does Triada work?

Once downloaded onto a user’s device, Triada collects information about the system, such as the device’s model, OS version, SD card space, and list of installed applications, and sends this information to a C2 server. The server then responds with a configuration file containing the device’s personal identification number and settings, including the list of modules to be installed.

After a device has been successfully infected by Triada, malicious actors can monitor and intercept incoming and outgoing texts (including two-factor authentication messages), steal login credentials and credit card information from financial applications, divert in-application purchases to themselves, create fake messaging and email accounts, install additional malicious applications, infect devices with ransomware, and take control of the camera and microphone [4] [7].

For devices infected by unofficial versions of WhatsApp, which are downloaded from third-party app stores [9] and from mobile applications such as Snaptube and Vidmate , Triada collects unique device identifiers, information, and keys required for legitimate WhatsApp to work and sends them to a remote server to register the device [7] [12]. The server then responds by sending a link to the Triada payload, which is downloaded and launched. This payload will also download additional malicious modules, sign into WhatsApp accounts on the target’s phone, and request the same permissions as the legitimate WhatsApp application, such as access to SMS messages. If granted, a malicious actor can sign the user up for paid subscriptions without their knowledge. Triada then collects information about the user’s device and mobile operator and sends it to the C2 server [9] [12].

How does Triada avoid detection?

Triada evades detection by modifying the Zygote process, which serves as a template for every application in the Android OS. This enables the malware to become part of every application launched on a device [3]. It also substitutes system functions and conceals modules from the list of running processes and installed apps, ensuring that the system does not raise the alarm [3]. Additionally, as Triada connects to a C2 server on the first boot, infected devices remain compromised even after a factory reset [4].

Triada attack overview

Across multiple customer deployments, devices were observed making a large number of connections to a range of hostnames, primarily over encrypted SSL and HTTPS protocols. These hostnames had never previously been observed on the customers’ networks and appear to be algorithmically generated. Examples include “68u91.66foh90o[.]com”, “92n7au[.]uhabq9[.]com”, “9yrh7.mea5ms[.]com”, and “is5jg.3zweuj[.]com”.

External Sites Summary Graph showing the rarity of the hostname “92n7au[.]uhabq9[.]com” on a customer network.
Figure 1: External Sites Summary Graph showing the rarity of the hostname “92n7au[.]uhabq9[.]com” on a customer network.

Most of the IP addresses associated with these hostnames belong to an ASN associated with the cloud provider Alibaba (i.e., AS45102 Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd). These connections were made over a range of high number ports over 1000, most commonly over 30000 such as 32091, which Darktrace recognized as extremely unusual for the SSL and HTTPS protocols.

Screenshot of a Model Alert Event log showing a device connecting to the endpoint “is5jg[.]3zweuj[.]com” over port 32091.
Figure 2: Screenshot of a Model Alert Event log showing a device connecting to the endpoint “is5jg[.]3zweuj[.]com” over port 32091.

On several customer deployments, devices were seen exfiltrating data to hostnames which also appeared to be algorithmically generated. This occurred via HTTP POST requests containing unusual URI strings that were made without a prior GET request, indicating that the infected device was using a hardcoded list of C2 servers.

Screenshot of a Model Alert Event Log showing the device posting the string “i8xps1” to the hostname “72zf6.rxqfd[.]com.
Figure 3: Screenshot of a Model Alert Event Log showing the device posting the string “i8xps1” to the hostname “72zf6.rxqfd[.]com.
 Screenshot of a Model Alert Event Log showing the device posting the string “sqyjyadwwq” to the hostname “9yrh7.mea5ms[.]com”.
Figure 4: Screenshot of a Model Alert Event Log showing the device posting the string “sqyjyadwwq” to the hostname “9yrh7.mea5ms[.]com”.

These connections correspond with reports that devices affected by Triada communicate with the C2 server to transmit their information and receive instructions for installing the payload.

A number of these endpoints have communicating files associated with the unofficial WhatsApp versions YoWhatsApp and FM WhatsApp [11] [12] [13] . This could indicate that the devices connecting to these endpoints were infected via malicious modules in the unofficial versions of WhatsApp, as reported by open-source intelligence (OSINT) [10] [12]. It could also mean that the infected devices are using these connections to download additional files from the C2 server, which could infect systems with additional malicious modules related to Triada.

Moreover, on certain customer deployments, shortly before or after connecting to algorithmically generated hostnames with communicating files linked to YoWhatsApp and FM WhatsApp, devices were also seen connecting to multiple endpoints associated with WhatsApp and Facebook.

Figure 5: Screenshot from a device’s event log showing connections to endpoints associated with WhatsApp shortly after it connected to “9yrh7.mea5ms[.]com”.

These surrounding connections indicate that Triada is attempting to sign in to the users’ WhatsApp accounts on their mobile devices to request permissions such as access to text messages. Additionally, Triada sends information about users’ devices and mobile operators to the C2 server.

The connections made to the algorithmically generated hostnames over SSL and HTTPS protocols, along with the HTTP POST requests, triggered multiple Darktrace models to alert. These models include those that detect connections to potentially algorithmically generated hostnames, connections over ports that are highly unusual for the protocol used, unusual connectivity over the SSL protocol, and HTTP POSTs to endpoints that Darktrace has determined to be rare for the network.

Conclusion

Recently, the use of Android-based malware families, aimed at stealing banking and login credentials, has become a popular trend among threat actors. They use this information to perform identity theft and steal funds from victims worldwide.

Across affected customers, multiple devices were observed connecting to a range of likely algorithmically generated hostnames over SSL and HTTPS protocols. These devices were also seen sending data out of the network to various hostnames via HTTP POST requests without first making a GET request. The URIs in these requests appeared to be algorithmically generated, suggesting the exfiltration of sensitive network data to multiple Triada C2 servers.

This activity highlights the sophisticated methods used by malware like Triada to evade detection and exfiltrate data. It underscores the importance of advanced security measures and anomaly-based detection systems to identify and mitigate such mobile threats, protecting sensitive information and maintaining network integrity.

Credit to: Justin Torres (Senior Cyber Security Analyst) and Anna Gilbertson (Cyber Security Analyst).

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections

Model Alert Coverage

Anomalous Connection / Application Protocol on Uncommon Port

Anomalous Connection / Multiple Connections to New External TCP Port

Anomalous Connection / Multiple HTTP POSTS to Rare Hostname

Anomalous Connections / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint

Anomalous Connection / Suspicious Expired SSL

Compromise / DGA Beacon

Compromise / Domain Fluxing

Compromise / Fast Beaconing to DGA

Compromise / Sustained SSL or HTTP Increase

Compromise / Unusual Connections to Rare Lets Encrypt

Unusual Activity / Unusual External Activity

AI Analyst Incident Coverage

Unusual Repeated Connections to Multiple Endpoints

Possible SSL Command and Control

Unusual Repeated Connections

List of Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

Ioc – Type - Description

  • is5jg[.]3zweuj[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 68u91[.]66foh90o[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 9yrh7[.]mea5ms[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 92n7au[.]uhabq9[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 4a5x2[.]fs4ah[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • jmll4[.]66foh90o[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • mrswd[.]wo87sf[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • lptkw[.]s4xx6[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • ya27fw[.]k6zix6[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • w0g25[.]66foh90o[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • kivr8[.]wd6vy[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • iuwe64[.]ct8pc6[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • qefgn[.]8z0le[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • a6y0x[.]xu0h7[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • wewjyw[.]qb6ges[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • vx9dle[.]n0qq3z[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 72zf6[.]rxqfd[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • dwq[.]fsdw4f[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • tqq6g[.]66foh90o[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 1rma1[.]4f8uq[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 0fdwa[.]7j3gj[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 5a7en[.]1e42t[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • gmcp4[.]1e42t[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • g7190[.]rt14v[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • goyvi[.]2l2wa[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • zq6kk[.]ca0qf[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • sv83k[.]bn3avv[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 9sae7h[.]ct8pc6[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • jpygmk[.]qt7tqr[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • av2wg[.]rt14v[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • ugbrg[.]osz1p[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • hw2dm[.]wtws9k[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • kj9atb[.]hai8j1[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • pls9b[.]b0vb3[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8rweau[.]j7e7r[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • wkc5kn[.]j7e7r[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • v58pq[.]mpvflv[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • zmai4k[.]huqp3e[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • eajgum[.]huqp3e[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • mxl9zg[.]kv0pzv[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • ad1x7[.]mea5ms[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • ixhtb[.]s9gxw8[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • vg1ne[.]uhabq9[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • q5gd0[.]birxpk[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • dycsw[.]h99n6[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • a3miu[.]h99n6[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • qru62[.]5qwu8b5[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 3eox8[.]abxkoop[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 0kttj[.]bddld[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • gjhdr[.]xikuj[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • zq6kk[.]wm0hd[.]com - Hostname - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.219[.]234 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.244[.]205 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.243[.]182 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.240[.]127 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.219.123[.]139 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.219.196[.]124 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.217[.]73 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.251[.]253 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.194[.]254 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.251[.]34 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 8.222.216[.]105 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 47.245.83[.]167 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 198.200.54[.]56 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 47.236.113[.]126 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • 47.241.47[.]128 - IP Address - Triada C2 Endpoint
  • /iyuljwdhxk - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /gvuhlbzknh - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /sqyjyadwwq - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /cncyz3 - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /42k0zk - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /75kdl5 - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /i8xps1 - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /84gcjmo - URI - Triada C2 URI
  • /fkhiwf - URI - Triada C2 URI

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Technique Name - Tactic - ID - Sub-Technique of

Data Obfuscation - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1001

Non-Standard Port - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1571

Standard Application Layer Protocol - COMMAND AND CONTROL ICS - T0869

Non-Application Layer Protocol - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1095

Masquerading - EVASION ICS - T0849

Man in the Browser - COLLECTION - T1185

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

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

Domain Generation Algorithms - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1568.002 - T1568

Web Services - RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT - T1583.006 - T1583

DNS - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1071.004 - T1071

Fast Flux DNS - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1568.001 - T1568

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

Digital Certificates - RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT - T1587.003 - T1587

References

[1] https://www.checkpoint.com/cyber-hub/cyber-security/what-is-trojan/what-is-a-banking-trojan/

[2] https://cyberfraudcentre.com/the-rise-of-the-antidot-android-banking-trojan-a-comprehensive-guide

[3] https://www.zimperium.com/glossary/banking-trojans/

[4] https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-is-triada-malware/

[5] https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/malware-infected-devices-retailers/

[6] https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/24926-triada-trojan-android

[7] https://securelist.com/malicious-whatsapp-mod-distributed-through-legitimate-apps/107690/

[8] https://securityboulevard.com/2024/02/impact-of-badbox-and-peachpit-malware-on-android-devices/

[9] https://threatpost.com/custom-whatsapp-build-malware/168892/

[10] https://securelist.com/triada-trojan-in-whatsapp-mod/103679/

[11] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/is5jg.3zweuj.com/relations

[12] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/92n7au.uhabq9.com/relations

[13] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/68u91.66foh90o.com/relations

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

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April 16, 2025

Introducing Version 2 of Darktrace’s Embedding Model for Investigation of Security Threats (DEMIST-2)

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DEMIST-2 is Darktrace’s latest embedding model, built to interpret and classify security data with precision. It performs highly specialized tasks and can be deployed in any environment. Unlike generative language models, DEMIST-2 focuses on providing reliable, high-accuracy detections for critical security use cases.

DEMIST-2 Core Capabilities:  

  • Enhances Cyber AI Analyst’s ability to triage and reason about security incidents by providing expert representation and classification of security data, and as a part of our broader multi-layered AI system
  • Classifies and interprets security data, in contrast to language models that generate unpredictable open-ended text responses  
  • Incorporates new innovations in language model development and architecture, optimized specifically for cybersecurity applications
  • Deployable across cloud, on-prem, and edge environments, DEMIST-2 delivers low-latency, high-accuracy results wherever it runs. It enables inference anywhere.

Cybersecurity is constantly evolving, but the need to build precise and reliable detections remains constant in the face of new and emerging threats. Darktrace’s Embedding Model for Investigation of Security Threats (DEMIST-2) addresses these critical needs and is designed to create stable, high-fidelity representations of security data while also serving as a powerful classifier. For security teams, this means faster, more accurate threat detection with reduced manual investigation. DEMIST-2's efficiency also reduces the need to invest in massive computational resources, enabling effective protection at scale without added complexity.  

As an embedding language model, DEMIST-2 classifies and creates meaning out of complex security data. This equips our Self-Learning AI with the insights to compare, correlate, and reason with consistency and precision. Classifications and embeddings power core capabilities across our products where accuracy is not optional, as a part of our multi-layered approach to AI architecture.

Perhaps most importantly, DEMIST-2 features a compact architecture that delivers analyst-level insights while meeting diverse deployment needs across cloud, on-prem, and edge environments. Trained on a mixture of general and domain-specific data and designed to support task specialization, DEMIST-2 provides privacy-preserving inference anywhere, while outperforming larger general-purpose models in key cybersecurity tasks.

This proprietary language model reflects Darktrace's ongoing commitment to continually innovate our AI solutions to meet the unique challenges of the security industry. We approach AI differently, integrating diverse insights to solve complex cybersecurity problems. DEMIST-2 shows that a refined, optimized, domain-specific language model can deliver outsized results in an efficient package. We are redefining possibilities for cybersecurity, but our methods transfer readily to other domains. We are eager to share our findings to accelerate innovation in the field.  

The evolution of DEMIST-2

Key concepts:  

  • Tokens: The smallest units processed by language models. Text is split into fragments based on frequency patterns allowing models to handle unfamiliar words efficiently
  • Low-Rank Adaptors (LoRA): Small, trainable components added to a model that allow it to specialize in new tasks without retraining the full system. These components learn task-specific behavior while the original foundation model remains unchanged. This approach enables multiple specializations to coexist, and work simultaneously, without drastically increasing processing and memory requirements.

Darktrace began using large language models in our products in 2022. DEMIST-2 reflects significant advancements in our continuous experimentation and adoption of innovations in the field to address the unique needs of the security industry.  

It is important to note that Darktrace uses a range of language models throughout its products, but each one is chosen for the task at hand. Many others in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry are focused on broad application of large language models (LLMs) for open-ended text generation tasks. Our research shows that using LLMs for classification and embedding offers better, more reliable, results for core security use cases. We’ve found that using LLMs for open-ended outputs can introduce uncertainty through inaccurate and unreliable responses, which is detrimental for environments where precision matters. Generative AI should not be applied to use cases, such as investigation and threat detection, where the results can deeply matter. Thoughtful application of generative AI capabilities, such as drafting decoy phishing emails or crafting non-consequential summaries are helpful but still require careful oversight.

Data is perhaps the most important factor for building language models. The data used to train DEMIST-2 balanced the need for general language understanding with security expertise. We used both publicly available and proprietary datasets.  Our proprietary dataset included privacy-preserving data such as URIs observed in customer alerts, anonymized at source to remove PII and gathered via the Call Home and aianalyst.darktrace.com services. For additional details, read our Technical Paper.  

DEMIST-2 is our way of addressing the unique challenges posed by security data. It recognizes that security data follows its own patterns that are distinct from natural language. For example, hostnames, HTTP headers, and certificate fields often appear in predictable ways, but not necessarily in a way that mirrors natural language. General-purpose LLMs tend to break down when used in these types of highly specialized domains. They struggle to interpret structure and context, fragmenting important patterns during tokenization in ways that can have a negative impact on performance.  

DEMIST-2 was built to understand the language and structure of security data using a custom tokenizer built around a security-specific vocabulary of over 16,000 words. This tokenizer allows the model to process inputs more accurately like encoded payloads, file paths, subdomain chains, and command-line arguments. These types of data are often misinterpreted by general-purpose models.  

When the tokenizer encounters unfamiliar or irregular input, it breaks the data into smaller pieces so it can still be processed. The ability to fall back to individual bytes is critical in cybersecurity contexts where novel or obfuscated content is common. This approach combines precision with flexibility, supporting specialized understanding with resilience in the face of unpredictable data.  

Along with our custom tokenizer, we made changes to support task specialization without increasing model size. To do this, DEMIST-2 uses LoRA . LoRA is a technique that integrates lightweight components with the base model to allow it to perform specific tasks while keeping memory requirements low. By using LoRA, our proprietary representation of security knowledge can be shared and reused as a starting point for more highly specialized models, for example, it takes a different type of specialization to understand hostnames versus to understand sensitive filenames. DEMIST-2 dynamically adapts to these needs and performs them with purpose.  

The result is that DEMIST-2 is like having a room of specialists working on difficult problems together, while sharing a basic core set of knowledge that does not need to be repeated or reintroduced to every situation. Sharing a consistent base model also improves its maintainability and allows efficient deployment across diverse environments without compromising speed or accuracy.  

Tokenization and task specialization represent only a portion of the updates we have made to our embedding model. In conjunction with the changes described above, DEMIST-2 integrates several updated modeling techniques that reduce latency and improve detections. To learn more about these details, our training data and methods, and a full write-up of our results, please read our scientific whitepaper.

DEMIST-2 in action

In this section, we highlight DEMIST-2's embeddings and performance. First, we show a visualization of how DEMIST-2 classifies and interprets hostnames, and second, we present its performance in a hostname classification task in comparison to other language models.  

Embeddings can often feel abstract, so let’s make them real. Figure 1 below is a 2D visualization of how DEMIST-2 classifies and understands hostnames. In reality, these hostnames exist across many more dimensions, capturing details like their relationships with other hostnames, usage patterns, and contextual data. The colors and positions in the diagram represent a simplified view of how DEMIST-2 organizes and interprets these hostnames, providing insights into their meaning and connections. Just like an experienced human analyst can quickly identify and group hostnames based on patterns and context, DEMIST-2 does the same at scale.  

DEMIST-2 visualization of hostname relationships from a large web dataset.
Figure 1: DEMIST-2 visualization of hostname relationships from a large web dataset.

Next, let’s zoom in on two distinct clusters that DEMIST-2 recognizes. One cluster represents small businesses (Figure 2) and the other, Russian and Polish sites with similar numerical formats (Figure 3). These clusters demonstrate how DEMIST-2 can identify specific groupings based on real-world attributes such as regional patterns in website structures, common formats used by small businesses, and other properties such as its understanding of how websites relate to each other on the internet.

Cluster of small businesses
Figure 2: Cluster of small businesses
Figure 3: Cluster of Russian and Polish sites with a similar numerical format

The previous figures provided a view of how DEMIST-2 works. Figure 4 highlights DEMIST-2’s performance in a security-related classification task. The chart shows how DEMIST-2, with just 95 million parameters, achieves nearly 94% accuracy—making it the highest-performing model in the chart, despite being the smallest. In comparison, the larger model with 2.78 billion parameters achieves only about 89% accuracy, showing that size doesn’t always mean better performance. Small models don’t mean poor performance. For many security-related tasks, DEMIST-2 outperforms much larger models.

Hostname classification task performance comparison against comparable open source foundation models
Figure 4: Hostname classification task performance comparison against comparable open source foundation models

With these examples of DEMIST-2 in action, we’ve shown how it excels in embedding and classifying security data while delivering high performance on specialized security tasks.  

The DEMIST-2 advantage

DEMIST-2 was built for precision and reliability. Our primary goal was to create a high-performance model capable of tackling complex cybersecurity tasks. Optimizing for efficiency and scalability came second, but it is a natural outcome of our commitment to building a strong, effective solution that is available to security teams working across diverse environments. It is an enormous benefit that DEMIST-2 is orders of magnitude smaller than many general-purpose models. However, and much more importantly, it significantly outperforms models in its capabilities and accuracy on security tasks.  

Finding a product that fits into an environment’s unique constraints used to mean that some teams had to settle for less powerful or less performant products. With DEMIST-2, data can remain local to the environment, is entirely separate from the data of other customers, and can even operate in environments without network connectivity. The size of our model allows for flexible deployment options while at the same time providing measurable performance advantages for security-related tasks.  

As security threats continue to evolve, we believe that purpose-built AI systems like DEMIST-2 will be essential tools for defenders, combining the power of modern language modeling with the specificity and reliability that builds trust and partnership between security practitioners and AI systems.

Conclusion

DEMIST-2 has additional architectural and deployment updates that improve performance and stability. These innovations contribute to our ability to minimize model size and memory constraints and reflect our dedication to meeting the data handling and privacy needs of security environments. In addition, these choices reflect our dedication to responsible AI practices.

DEMIST-2 is available in Darktrace 6.3, along with a new DIGEST model that uses GNNs and RNNs to score and prioritize threats with expert-level precision.

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About the author
Margaret Cunningham, PhD
Director, Security & AI Strategy, Field CISO

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April 16, 2025

AI Uncovered: Introducing Darktrace Incident Graph Evaluation for Security Threats (DIGEST)

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DIGEST advances how Cyber AI Analyst scores and prioritizes incidents. Trained on over a million anonymized incident graphs, our model brings deeper context to severity scoring by analyzing how threats are structured and how they evolve. DIGEST assesses threats as an expert, before damage is done. For more details beyond this overview, please read our Technical Research Paper.

Darktrace combines machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) approaches using a multi-layered, multi-method approach. The result is an AI system that continuously ingests data from across an organization’s environment, learns from it, and adapts in real time. DIGEST adds a new layer to this system, specifically to our Cyber AI Analyst, the first and most experienced AI Analyst in cybersecurity, dedicated to refining how incidents are scored and prioritized. DIGEST improves what your team uses to focus on what matters the most first.

To build DIGEST, we combined Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to interpret incident structure with Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) to analyze how incidents evolve over time. This pairing allows DIGEST to reliably determine the potential severity of an incident even at an early stage to give the Cyber AI Analyst a critical edge in identifying high-risk threats early and recognizing when activity is unlikely to escalate.

DIGEST works locally in real-time regardless of whether your Darktrace deployment is on prem or in the cloud, without requiring data to be sent externally for decisions to be made. It was built to support teams in all environments, including those with strict data controls and limited connectivity.

Our approach to AI is unique, drawing inspiration from multiple disciplines to tackle the toughest cybersecurity challenges. DIGEST demonstrates how a novel application of GNNs and RNNs improves the prioritization and triage of security incidents. By blending interdisciplinary expertise with innovative AI techniques, we are able to push the boundaries of what’s possible and deliver it where it is needed most. We are eager to share our findings to accelerate progress throughout the broader field of AI development.

DIGEST: Pattern, progression, and prioritization

Most security incidents start quietly. A device contacting an unusual domain. Credentials are used at unexpected hours. File access patterns shift. The fundamental challenge is not always detecting these anomalies but knowing what to address first. DIGEST gives us this capability.

To understand DIGEST, it helps to start with Cyber AI Analyst, a critical component of our Self-Learning AI system and a front-line triage partner in security investigations. It combines supervised and unsupervised machine learning (ML) techniques, natural language processing (NLP), and graph-based reasoning to investigate and summarize security incidents.

DIGEST was built as an additional layer of analysis within Cyber AI Analyst. It enhances its capabilities by refining how incidents are scored and prioritized, helping teams focus on what matters most more quickly. For a general view of the ML and AI methods that power Darktrace products, read our AI Arsenal whitepaper. This paper provides insights regarding the various approaches we use to detect, investigate, and prioritize threats.

Cyber AI Analyst is constantly investigating alerts and produces millions of critical incidents every year. The dynamic graphs produced by Cyber AI Analyst investigations represent an abstract understanding of security incidents that is fully anonymized and privacy preserving. This allowed us to use the Call Home and aianalyst.darktrace.com services to produce a dataset comprising the broad structure of millions of incidents that Cyber AI analyst detected on customer deployments, without containing any sensitive data. (Read our technical research paper for more details about our dataset).

The dynamic graphs from Cyber AI Analyst capture the structure of security incidents where nodes represent entities like users, devices or resources, and edges represent the multitude of relationships between them. As new activity is observed, the graph expands, capturing the progression of incidents over time. Our dataset contained everything from benign administrative behavior to full-scale ransomware attacks.

Unique data, unmatched insights

Key terms

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs): A type of neural network designed to analyze and interpret data structured as graphs, capturing relationships between nodes.

Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs): A type of neural network designed to model sequences where the order of events matters, like how activity unfolds in a security incident.

The Cyber AI Analyst dataset used to train DIGEST reflects over a decade of work in AI paired with unmatched expertise in cybersecurity. Prior to training DIGEST on our incident graph data set, we performed rigorous data preprocessing to ensure to remove issues such as duplicate or ill-formed incidents. Additionally, to validate DIGEST’s outputs, expert security analysts assessed and verified the model’s scoring.

Transforming data into insights requires using the right strategies and techniques. Given the graphical nature of Cyber AI Analyst incident data, we used GNNs and RNNs to train DIGEST to understand incidents and how they are likely to change over time. Change does not always mean escalation. DIGEST’s enhanced scoring also keeps potentially legitimate or low-severity activity from being prioritized over threats that are more likely to get worse. At the beginning, all incidents might look the same to a person. To DIGEST, it looks like the beginning of a pattern.

As a result, DIGEST enhances our understanding of security incidents by evaluating the structure of the incident, probable next steps in an incident’s trajectory, and how likely it is to grow into a larger event.

To illustrate these capabilities in action, we are sharing two examples of DIGEST’s scoring adjustments from use cases within our customers’ environments.

First, Figure 1 shows the graphical representation of a ransomware attack, and Figure 2 shows how DIGEST scored incident progression of that ransomware attack. At hour two, DIGEST’s score escalated to 95% well before observation of data encryption. This means that prior to seeing malicious encryption behaviors, DIGEST understood the structure of the incident and flagged these early activities as high-likelihood precursors to a severe event. Early detection, especially when flagged prior to malicious encryption behaviors, gives security teams a valuable head start and can minimize the overall impact of the threat, Darktrace Autonomous Response can also be enabled by Cyber AI Analyst to initiate an immediate action to stop the progression, allowing the human security team time to investigate and implement next steps.

Graph representation of a ransomware attack
Figure 1: Graph representation of a ransomware attack
Timeline of DIGEST incident score escalation. Note that timestep does not equate to hours, the spike in score to 95% occurred approximately 2 hours into the attack, prior to data encryption.
Figure 2:  Timeline of DIGEST incident score escalation. Note that timestep does not equate to hours, the spike in score to 95% occurred approximately 2 hours into the attack, prior to data encryption.

In contrast, our second example shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4 illustrates how DIGEST’s analysis of an incident can help teams avoid wasting time on lower risk scenarios. In this instance, Figure 3 illustrates a graph of unusual administrative activity, where we observed connection to a large group of devices. However, the incident score remained low because DIGEST determined that high risk malicious activity was unlikely. This determination was based on what DIGEST observed in the incident's structure, what it assessed as the probable next steps in the incident lifecycle and how likely it was to grow into a larger adverse event.

Graph representation of unusual admin activity connecting to a large group of devices.
Figure 3: Graph representation of unusual admin activity connecting to a large group of devices.
Timeline of DIGEST incident scoring, where the score remained low as the unusual event was determined to be low risk.
Figure 4: Timeline of DIGEST incident scoring, where the score remained low as the unusual event was determined to be low risk.

These examples show the value of enhanced scoring. DIGEST helps teams act sooner on the threats that count and spend less time chasing the ones that do not.

The next phase of advanced detection is here

Darktrace understands what incidents look like. We have seen, investigated, and learned from them at scale, including over 90 million investigations in 2024. With DIGEST, we can share our deep understanding of incidents and their behaviors with you and triage these incidents using Cyber AI Analyst.

Our ability to innovate in this space is grounded in the maturity of our team and the experiences we have built upon in over a decade of building AI solutions for cybersecurity. This experience, along with our depth of understanding of our data, techniques, and strategic layering of AI/ML components has shaped every one of our steps forward.

With DIGEST, we are entering a new phase, with another line of defense that helps teams prioritize and reason over incidents and threats far earlier in an incident’s lifecycle. DIGEST understands your incidents when they start, making it easier for your team to act quickly and confidently.

DIGEST is available in Darktrace 6.3, along with a new embedding model – DEMIST-2 – designed to provide reliable, high-accuracy detections for critical security use cases.

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About the author
Margaret Cunningham, PhD
Director, Security & AI Strategy, Field CISO
Your data. Our AI.
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