Press Release

April 14, 2023 11:42 AM

Updated statement regarding LockBit claims

Mike Beck, Chief Information Security Officer, Darktrace

We have completed a thorough security investigation following yesterday’s tweets by LockBit claiming they had compromised Darktrace’s internal systems. We can confirm that there has been no compromise of our systems or any of our affiliate systems. Our service to our customers remains uninterrupted and is operating as normal and no further action is required.

Press Release

April 13, 2023 9:30 AM

Statement regarding LockBit claims

Earlier this morning we became aware of tweets from LockBit, the cyber-criminal gang, claiming that they had compromised Darktrace’s internal security systems and had accessed our data. Our security teams have run a full review of our internal systems and can see no evidence of compromise. None of the LockBit social media posts link to any compromised Darktrace data. We will continue to monitor the situation extremely closely, but based on our current investigations we are confident that our systems remain secure and all customer data is fully protected.


Press Release

AI Worms, Hallucinations and Climate Hacktivism: Darktrace Unveils Top Cybersecurity and AI Predictions for 2024

Cambridge, UK
December 14, 2023
  • Darktrace has revealed its top 5 predictions for cybersecurity and AI in 2024 following a critical year in AI development
  • A rise in climate hacktivism, escalating multilingual AI threats, and the first “AI worm” are among the key predictions from Darktrace experts
  • The exploitation of elections through AI-generated deepfakes and propaganda also predicted to heighten in a significant year for democracy

Darktrace, a global leader in cybersecurity AI, has released its top 5 predictions expected to threaten governments and businesses in 2024, following a pivotal year in the progression of AI. These insights, derived from expert analyses and business trends, forecast a year of significant change and challenge in the cyber domain, with real-world implications.

A year of exploited elections: 2024 will be crucial for democracy and high stakes elections, as Russia, Ukraine, UK and US potentially hit the polls to elect their leaders. The use of cyber attacks to manipulate voters is nothing new, but this year could see a new weapon exploited - AI-generated deepfakes and propaganda, to either destabilise the vote, or amplify one candidate over another. This capability is more accessible than ever, and whilst outlandish statements might be relatively easy to refute, subtle alterations and manipulations of content could be enough to sow elements of doubt. Other techniques might be resurrected, like the use of stolen political and electoral data, which we saw in the 2016 US election and UK’s Brexit referendum. Voters will need to be mindful of the content they consume and the reputability of their sources. 

Cyber threats go multilingual: For decades, the majority of cyber-enabled social engineering, like phishing, has been carried out in English, the international language of business. This made the Asia-Pacific region, home to diverse and complex languages, a relative safe haven from attackers.

However, Generative AI has dramatically dropped the barrier to entry for composing text in foreign languages and we can expect attackers to add new language capabilities which were previously viewed as too complex to be worth the effort, including Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and Hindi. That threat will be compounded by employees coached to look out for phishing emails written in English, but not their own language, to make phishing in new languages a provide fertile ground for attackers and a weak spot for APAC’s businesses

Businesses face additional AI dangers: Businesses need to be wary of malicious actors, nation-states and ransomware groups who will continue to leverage the widespread adoption of AI. It is critical that businesses prepare for this and the danger of advancing threats. 2024 may also be the year we see the first AI worm  deployed - combining traditional worming ransomware like WannaCry or notPetya with more advanced, AI-driven automation to create an aggressive autonomous agent, capable of burrowing into business’ software.

Rise of climate hacktivism: Darktrace anticipates a new wave of eco-activism, marking 2024 as the year of climate ‘hacktivism’ in the cyberspace. Over the past year climate change campaigners caused significant disruption through physical protests, but experts predict that the next phase of protest could be cyber-led. Campaigners may target fossil fuel companies with AI-powered, sophisticated cyber-attacks, which will disrupt, damage and send a firm message to polluters.  

Cloud will be the Achilles heel for businesses’ cybersecurity: Cloud environments are increasingly becoming a source of vulnerability for businesses – and this is set to continue in the coming year. There’s a shortage of expertise and skills when dealing with the cloud, and as more data storage and processing shifts to the cloud, these platforms will become even more of a prime target for cybercriminals. Businesses will need to recognise and address this vulnerability.

Toby Lewis, Global Head of Threat Analysis at Darktrace, said: "2023 was a pivotal year in AI development and adoption. But as governments and businesses have woken up to the AI revolution, so too have cyber criminals, and we are seeing increasing evidence that they are seizing these tools for their own gain.

“This will only accelerate in 2024. Significant global events and trends will become a target for those looking to exploit and disrupt, while generative AI will open doors for more advanced multilingual attacks and climate ‘hacktivism’.

“This underscores the need for advanced, AI-driven cybersecurity solutions. As bad actors become smarter and more sophisticated, businesses need to be equipped with the tools to prevent and protect, and the public be increasingly wary of their data and the content they consume."

ABOUT DARKTRACE

Darktrace (DARK.L), a global leader in cyber security artificial intelligence, is on a mission to free the world of cyber disruption. Breakthrough innovations in our Cyber AI Research Centre in Cambridge, UK have resulted in over 160 patents filed and research published to contribute to the cyber security community. Rather than study attacks, Darktrace's technology continuously learns and updates its knowledge of your business data and applies that understanding to optimise your state of optimal cyber security. Darktrace's cyber AI technology provides a full lifecycle approach to cyber resilience across the entire organisation that can autonomously spot and respond to novel in progress threats within seconds. Darktrace employs over 2,200 people around the world and protects approximately 8,900 customers globally from advanced cyber threats. Darktrace was named one of TIME magazine's 'Most Influential Companies' in 2021. To learn more, visit http://www.darktrace.com.

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AI Worms, Hallucinations and Climate Hacktivism: Darktrace Unveils Top Cybersecurity and AI Predictions for 2024

December 14, 2023

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Darktrace named a Challenger in first Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Email Security Platforms ·      Evaluated on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute Darktrace, a global leader in AI for cybersecurity,today announces that Darktrace / EMAIL™, has been recognized in thefirst ever Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Email Security Platforms (ESP) as a Challenger. Chris Kozup, Chief Marketing Officer, Darktrace, said of therecognition: “We are extremely proud to have been recognized in the first MagicQuadrant for ESP.  We believe the factthat wehave seen such wide scale adoption is testament to the unique way in which wedevelop products to keep our customers safe from even the most sophisticated emailcompromises. We believe our placement reaffirms our dedication to deliveringexceptional customer service, and innovations that safeguard against the emailchallenges of today—and tomorrow.” Darktrace customers consistently acknowledge its exceptional customersupport, delivered by an award-winning[1]service team. Darktrace has the highest percentage of 5-star ratings with a 4.8rating on Gartner® Peer Insights™ out of 249 reviews as on[MW1]  19th December. We feel this unwavering commitment to customersatisfaction is evident in strong renewal rates and accelerated growth inDarktrace / EMAIL over the past few years, gaining almost 5,000 customers sinceits launch in 2019. Darktrace / EMAIL, one of the fastest-growing emailsecurity products on the market, is built on Darktrace’s unique Self-LearningAI, a multi-layered AI engine that leverages different types of AI includingNLP and behavioral analysis to detect threats, instead of traditional securitymeasures such as signatures and sandboxing. This approach enables Darktrace todetect and stop threats like business email compromise attacks and noveltechniques, including some 56% of which passed through customers’ other emailsecurity layers. This pioneering approach has enabled Darktrace to introduce industry-leadingcapabilities such as QR code analysis and automated incident investigations, alongsidedifferentiated functionality to help teams add new depth to their emailsecurity, including: Account     take over and Lateral mail account compromise protection.     Contributing yet another layer to the AI behavioural profile for each     user, security teams can now spot early symptoms of account compromise or     malicious insiders before a link or attachment payload is sent, and     exfiltration occur   Microsoft Teams security with advanced messaging analysis: Advancing beyond simple text analysis to     behavioral and natural language content analysis that tracks context     across both email and instant messaging to identify the approximately 38% of     phishing, sophisticated social engineering and novel insider threats other     solutions fail to capture ·      Drastically improveend user reporting with Cyber AI Analyst narratives: Real-time awareness training capabilities reduce falsepositives in phishing investigations by up to 60% by providing context specificanalysis of each received email to each employee as they interact with their mail.·       MailboxSecurity Assistant to increase security team operational efficiency: All forms ofsecondary investigations can now automatically perform advanced behavioralbrowser analysis and stop malicious links within webpages, reducing manualeffort of security analysts to detecting phishing links, and allowing them to remediateup to 70% more malicious phishing links than before.·       AI based,autonomous data loss prevention: to immediately protect organizations from misdirected emails,insider threats, and data loss—both classified and unclassified – using userbehavior and dynamic content analysis to determine sensitivity, removing administrativeoverhead from manual expressions and labeling.Marco Cavallo, IT Manager at Darktrace / EMAIL customer Arpa Industries comments:“During the POV, Darktrace / EMAIL showed how specific attacks weresurgically blocked. We realized that other tools wouldn’t have detected thesethreats.” Darktrace / EMAIL is part of Darktrace’s ActiveAI Security Platform™,offering network, cloud, endpoint, identity and operational technologyprotection from a single shared architecture, all built on Darktrace’s uniqueAI engine – providing a strong, integrated approach to threat prevention,detection and response across an organization’s entire digital footprint. Darktrace’s global presence supports a diverse and varied customer base,and adapts proactively to customer pain points of all kinds. Darktrace’sadaptability across all market segments, from SMBs to large enterprisessupports both first time email security buyers and mature email securitystacks. It is able to meet varied security needs with lower setuprequirements, includes capability for advanced depth in configuration and,particularly for mature organizations, can augment existing security providerswith additional protections.   Download the fullMagic Quadrant for Email Security Platforms here Resources:·      Read more onthe Darktrace Blog·      Read more abouthow business email compromise attacks are evolving on The Inference  Gartner disclaimersGartner, Magic Quadrant for EmailSecurity Platforms, Max Taggett, Nikul Patel, Franz Hinner, Deepak Mishra, 16December 2024 GARTNER is a registered trademarkand service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant and Peer Insights are aregistered trademark, of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. andinternationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual endusers based on their own experiences with the vendors listed on the platform,should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the viewsof Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product orservice depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed orimplied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness,including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particularpurpose. Gartner does not endorse any vendor,product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advisetechnology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or otherdesignation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’sresearch organization and should not be construed as statements of fact.Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to thisresearch, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for aparticular purpose.  About DarktraceDarktrace is a global leader in AI for cybersecurity that keepsorganizations ahead of the changing threat landscape every day. Founded in2013, Darktrace provides the essential cybersecurity platform protectingorganizations from unknown threats using its proprietary AI that learns fromthe unique patterns of life for each customer in real-time. The DarktraceActiveAI Security Platform™ delivers a proactive approach to cyber resiliencewith pre-emptive visibility into security posture, real-time threat detection,and autonomous response – securing the business across cloud, email,identities, operational technology, endpoints, and network. Breakthroughinnovations from our R&D teams in Cambridge, UK, and The Hague, Netherlandshave resulted in over 200 patent applications filed. Darktrace’s platform andservices are supported by over 2,400 employees around the world who protectnearly 10,000 customers across all major industries globally. To learn more,visit http://www.darktrace.com.   ---- 
[1] Darktrace wins two Globeeawards for excellent customer service [PressRelease] [MW1]shouldthis be 'of'