July 21, 2020

Industrial Sabotage Threats Uncovered

Protect your industrial systems from cyber threats with Darktrace's OT Threat Finder and learn how to prevent industrial sabotage.

Written by

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

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

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

Jul 2020

Darktrace recently detected a case of industrial sabotage while deployed at a food-processing organization in the EMEA region. Like many more high-profile attack campaigns such as EKANS, Havex, and BlackEnergy, this attack started in the business’s IT infrastructure before pivoting to target the OT network.

Despite having a substantial OT network, the company was not aware of the extent of IT/OT convergence in their architecture. They initially chose to deploy Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System, but not the Industrial Immune System assuming their OT systems were secure. As this attack moved from their IT systems and into OT, the additional visibility and ICS-specific models provided by Darktrace’s industrial offering would have delivered valuable additional context and further helped with threat remediation.

However, thanks to the Enterprise Immune System monitoring the events in real time, we can follow the threat as it moved through the corporate network over the span of three hours.

Timeline of incident

Figure 1: A timeline of events

Darktrace first detected a new device appearing in the “Computing” VLAN, which successfully connected to the “Industrial” VLAN using an admin RDP connection. The device then scanned the industrial network using OT ports 102 and 502, before appearing to call home to external locations using insecure HTTPS and making failed attempts to connect to external servers using OT port 502.

The device then appeared to make successful S7 and Modbus connections to other industrial devices, the nature of which could have been easily determined by the Industrial Immune System.

This new device was introduced directly onto the corporate network, bypassing traditional defenses that sit at the border. Any attempts made by the organization to segregate their IT and OT networks were insufficient in the face of the techniques used by the attacker.

Investigating at machine speed

Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst identified the breach device establishing a high volume of connections to unusual external IPs and transferring an unusually high volume of data with the internal WinCC server over port 3389. Simultaneously, the device was observed attempting to establish a high volume of internal connections over ports associated with ICS services. This activity suggests the breach device was conducting an internal scan.

Figure 2: A summary of the unusual data upload

Figure 3: A summary of the scanning activity

Figure 4: The device summary

The graph below details failed connections to external IP addresses made by the breach device when it joined the network (blue), and the mathematical importance of the activity (green), which reveals how statistically important this behavior is due to the size of its deviation from normal. Below that, Darktrace’s user interface surfaces every connection on the breach device over port 102.

Figure 5: The number of external connections made to closed ports

Figure 6: The Event Log for connections to S7 port 102 at the time of the incident

An immune system for industrial networks

Cross-examining and analyzing these multiple anomalies in real time, Darktrace identified this as a case of network reconnaissance. This is particularly suspicious as the device was only seen on the network for a two-day period. The unusual use of administrative credentials in the initial stages suggests the new device was attempting to control the WinCC Server, which allows Windows computers to communicate with industrial devices. Unauthorized access to this server could cause serious harm to the organization, as it would allow an attacker to learn about an industrial process, reconfigure multiple devices, or even fully sabotage the process.

The incident clearly demonstrates IT/OT convergence and the risks that entails, even – or especially – when businesses believe these systems are separate. Improper network segmentation makes ICS networks, particularly HMIs (human machine interfaces), an easy target for cyber-criminals or rogue insiders, making total visibility crucial in defending these systems.

This incident affirms that enterprise security needs to encompass OT security – the two can’t be treated as separate. The Industrial Immune System provides security analysts visibility across OT networks and subnets and defends against threats which might target industrial systems. Further, with AI learning the ‘pattern of life’ for every user, device, and controller, the technology can detect subtle deviations in behavior that evade other security tools, alerting security teams to potentially threatening activity in seconds. As attackers increasingly look to cause disruption and target industrial systems in their efforts, AI will be critical to keeping these systems secure and operational.

Thanks to Darktrace analyst Kendra Gonzalez Duran for her insights on the above threat find.

Learn more about the Industrial Immune System

Technical details

Darktrace model detections:

Unusual Activity from New Device
Anomalous SSL without SNI to New External
Rare External SSL Self-Signed
Unusual Admin RDP Session
Multiple Failed Internal Connections
Experimental / Possible ICS Protocol

IIS models which may have been able to add context/visibility:

Anomalous IT to ICS Connection
Multiple Failed Connections to ICS Device
Multiple New Discover Commands
Multiple New Action Commands
Uncommon ICS Reprogram
Unusual ICS Connectivity

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執筆者

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

Inside the SOC

Written by

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

Malware Research Lead

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AI

May 28, 2026

From Efficiency to Exposure: How AI Adoption Is Creating Unseen Vulnerabilities on the Factory Floor

How AI agents impact the manufacturing industry

Security teams and IT personnel across the manufacturing industry are under constant pressure to protect production, maintain uptime, and safeguard critical assets but the rise of AI is bringing huge new opportunities alongside new cyber risks. Across manufacturing, AI is embedded into workflows, decision-making, and increasingly, autonomous AI agents are acting on behalf of employees and systems.

Agentic systems are powerful because they can act independently, but that same autonomy also creates cyber and operational risk. Agents have extensive permissions and are capable of carrying out complex tasks, making decisions, and interacting with tools or external systems with little to no human intervention.

Unlike traditional AI models that perform predefined tasks, AI agents use advanced techniques to mimic human decision-making processes, dynamically adapting to new challenges, making decision and taking action based on their own judgement. They look like employees operationally but lack judgment, ethics, or fear of consequences like humans do. This means they can be easily manipulated by cybercriminals, and an AI agent embedded across an OT network creates threats that extend well beyond data exposure. For example, at BMW, AI identifies faults in welding processes as they occur. At its Spartanburg plant, AI monitors the weld of 300-400 metal studs onto every SUV frame to detect misplaced or faulty studs and correct them instantly. Corruption of BMW’s AI system could lead to catastrophic quality control errors.

Adopting agentic AI systems across manufacturing raises some concerns across security teams. New data from our State of AI Cybersecurity survey shows that 78% of manufacturing security professionals are worried about employee use of AI agents – their top concern. That’s followed by employee use of generative AI tools like CoPilot and ChatGPT, a worry for 76% of security professionals at manufacturing organizations. As these tools gain more access to business data and processes, and more autonomy within organizations, security teams, who today have minimal visibility of agent activity in their environments, increasingly have sensitive data exposure (a worry for 60%) and accidental policy and regulatory violations (59%) on their minds.

External AI-powered threats are evolving just as quickly

The same capabilities transforming manufacturing are also reshaping cyberattacks.

AI is enabling attackers to automate reconnaissance, refine targeting, and adapt in real time. What once required time and manual effort can now be executed continuously and at scale. Manufacturers are already seeing the impact. According to manufacturing security professionals we surveyed, 76% are already being impacted by AI-powered threats and 90% see AI increasing the success of social engineering attacks.

And the techniques themselves are evolving. Concerns across the manufacturing sector show growing anxiety about the range of AI-powered attack routes, most pressingly of adaptive malware that evolves in real-time – a prospect half (49%) of manufacturing security professionals we surveyed are worried by, a full 9% more than the average across industries. AI adaptive malware is followed by:

Automated vulnerability scanning and exploit chaining (48%) which has become even more pressing as Anthropic’s new Mythos AI Model supercharges vulnerability discovery

Hyper-personalized phishing campaigns (46%), which remain a mainstay in hackers’ arsenals, and AI has amplified their effectiveness by making phishing emails more convincing and harder to detect.

This is not just an increase in volume, it is a shift toward threats that evolve as they unfold - often faster than static defenses can respond.

Despite rising awareness, many manufacturers are not yet equipped to manage this shift. More than half (51%) say they are not adequately prepared for AI-driven threats, and only 37% have formal policies governing AI deployment.

Securing AI through visibility, context, and guardrails

Addressing this challenge does not require manufacturers to slow innovation. It requires a different approach to security, one that can operate at the same speed and scale as AI. Three specific priorities are emerging for manufacturers looking to take advantage of the power of AI.

Visibility is foundational.

Organizations need to understand where AI is being used, what it can access, and how it behaves across both IT and OT environments. Without that, risk cannot be measured or managed. It is no surprise that Darktrace’s research found that 91% of manufacturing security professionals said that they need to understand how AI makes decisions before trusting it. This is even more critical in operational settings where disruption has safety, environmental, financial, and reputational impacts.

Context is what turns visibility into action.

In environments shaped by AI, normal behavior is constantly shifting. Detecting threats requires a behavioral approach; understanding patterns of life across the organization and identifying subtle deviations in real time – a step change in organizations’ traditional approach to security and risk management.

Guardrails ensure that agency does not become exposure

As AI systems take on greater responsibility, organizations need clear boundaries around what they can do and when they can act independently. These controls must be embedded into systems themselves, not applied after the fact.

Securing AI Agents Across Manufacturing IT and OT

The rise of agentic AI is transforming manufacturing - powering next-generation operations while reshaping the security landscape. This is not just an increase in threats, but a shift to autonomous systems, continuously evolving behaviors, and risks moving at machine speed. For organizations trying to grapple with the challenge of enabling AI while managing the risk, visibility, context and guardrails should be foundational.

Darktrace helps manufacturers build secure AI approaches by making those foundations possible. It provides visibility and real-time detection and response to unusual activity across IT and OT environments and allows organizations to understand AI activity from the prompts employees use and the agents they build to how those agents are behaving across the environment. For manufacturers scaling AI, this delivers a foundation for innovation without sacrificing control.

About the author

Oakley Cox

Director of Product

Blog

AI

May 28, 2026

How to Evaluate AI Vendors: 5 Key categories for AI Adoption

Understanding the AI buyers’ market

AI adoption has become a central topic of discussion in boardrooms, drawing growing interest from business leaders. Ultimately, organizations hope that an investment in AI technology will have tremendous returns. However, the process of buying an AI solution is not as straight forward as it appears on the surface.

While business leaders may be eager to improve productivity across their operations, practitioners responsible for evaluating and selecting AI solutions may not always have the visibility or technical understanding needed to make the right decisions for their business. What is typically marketed as a holistic solution to their most critical problems is usually followed by uncertainty when AI tools are finally operationalized in real environments.

This guide is intended to support security leaders who are under growing pressure to adopt AI tools while navigating complex terminology, vendor claims, and increasingly crowded buying cycles. Ultimately, the goal is to help organizations evaluate and adopt AI in a safe, effective, and well-governed way. To support this, we’ve structured the evaluation framework across five key categories:

Governance, safety, and data controls

Data gathering and training

Model and technique choice

Performance and accuracy validation

Interpretability, adjustability, and transparency

What buying AI looks like in cybersecurity

While investing in AI can bring immense benefits to your security team, first-time buyers of AI cybersecurity solutions may not know where to start. They will have to determine the type of tool they want, know the options available, and evaluate vendors. Research and understanding are critical to ensure purchases are worth the investment.

With acceleration in AI adoption, accompanied by the recent boom in agentic AI and autonomous agents, CISOs must look “beneath the hood" of these tools to understand how they work, how they are governed, and to ensure the system is secure and compliant with internal policies.

Challenges in the AI buyers’ marketplace

The AI security software market is buzzing with hype and flashy promises, which, understandably, needs to be addressed with due diligence. Potential buyers, especially in the cybersecurity space, are hesitant when it comes to allowing AI autonomous capabilities across their workflows, and a lack of vendor transparency can exacerbate those feelings.

Reinforcing this sentiment, research from this year's Darktrace’s State of AI Cybersecurity report shows where confidence and hesitancy emerge amongst potential buyers. On the one hand, security professionals agree that they have good visibility into the logic and reasoning processes their AI solutions use. However, they lack the explainability and trust to allow AI to take independent remedial action.

89% say they have good visibility into the reasoning behind the outputs generated by AI solutions

92% say they need to understand how a defensive AI tool makes decisions before they can trust it

Only 14% say they allow AI to act independently, performing autonomous actions without human approval

74% say they are limiting the autonomy of AI taking action in their SOC until explainability improves

Given the desire for trust and explainability we are seeing from buyers, it's important for them to be equipped with the right questions to ask vendors during an assessment or POV of AI tools in order to demystify marketing hype from real operational outcomes.

Below is a list of categories in which buyers can assess AI vendors or AI Service Providers (AISPs) to help reach safe adoption and maximize their ROI.

5 categories of AI vendor assessment

Darktrace groups these AI-related questions into 5 categories: governance, data and training, model and technique choice, performance validation, and interpretability and adjustability. By asking questions regarding each of these 5 categories, buyers can gain a deeper understanding of how an AISP’s systems work and whether they suit their business requirements.

Governance, safety, and data controls

Governance of AI systems is critical for all AISPs. Whether their platform is based around a single model, or is a more complex, composite AI solution, strong governance is essential to ensure the system is safe, robust, and reliable.

A simple question you could ask is: ‍

What AI governance policies and frameworks do you follow, and/or certifications do you currently maintain?

For more questions you can ask vendors, download the full guide here.

Darktrace is certified to the ISO/IEC 42001 standard, the world’s first AI Management System (AIMS) standard. ISO/IEC 42001 addresses the unique ethical and technical challenges AI poses by setting out a structured way to manage risks such as transparency, accuracy, and misuse. This includes a commitment to ethical AI development, and effective management and monitoring of AI systems both prior to and continually after release.

Data gathering and training

Accurate, meaningful, and unbiased data gathering is the first important step in producing any AI system. An AI model trained using inaccurate, unbalanced, or poor-quality training data will fail to perform optimally.

To alleviate concerns regarding training data quality, a question you could ask is:

‍What steps do you take to prevent bias in your AI models and training data?

For more questions, download the full guide here.

AISPs should be able to provide information about the steps taken, workflows followed, and auditing performed to reduce AI bias where appropriate. While it’s sometimes impossible to fully remove bias from an AI model, appropriate actions should be taken to mitigate or reduce bias where relevant.

Model and technique choice

Different AI techniques are optimal for different tasks. For example, research from Gartner suggests that relying on a single “one-size-fits-all" model can lead to data gaps, especially in highly specialized domains.

To achieve more accurate and robust AI solutions, AI leaders should move beyond using just one model or technique, embrace composite AI practices, and adopt a holistic AI system perspective.

A straightforward question you could ask is simply:

‍What type(s) of AI model(s) do you utilize in your solution?

For more questions, download the full guide here.

While specific detailed information about custom systems used by AISPs is likely proprietary, buyers should expect vendors to be able to provide an overview of the broad techniques used. This will allow you as a buyer to determine if the type of model is appropriate for your use case.

Performance and accuracy validation

Testing and evaluation of performance is essential for all AI systems. Performance analysis should be performed both before release and continually after release to identify potential data or model drift.

A question you could ask to understand an AISPs testing workflow is:

‍How do you audit, test, evaluate, verify, and validate your AI model outputs?

For more questions, download the full guide here.

Testing workflows will likely vary depending on the type of model – measurements relevant to one system may not always be relevant to others. Assessment of systems should also extend beyond these standard accuracy and robustness tests, and should also feature physical performance, such as latency and resource consumption.

Interpretability, adjustability, and transparency

AI systems are typically a black box, simply providing an output without an explanation of how that output was attained. Interpretability and transparency are critical to ensure that both SOC teams and end-users trust the outputs of a system to be accurate and meaningful.

A question you could ask is:

‍How do you promote a trust relationship between human analysts and AI outputs?

For more questions, download the full guide here.

In the context of cybersecurity, trust and interpretability are even more essential. This is particularly relevant for generative AI-based systems (including most AI Agents), where the risk of hallucination can reduce trust in responses.

Cybersecurity systems often need to perform autonomous actions to block incoming threats – an email filtering system may hold potentially dangerous emails; a firewall may block malicious inbound connections. If SOC teams can’t trust these systems to perform accurately, these systems may be limited or disabled, critically reducing their defensive power.

Darktrace as an AI-native cybersecurity vendor

Darktrace has been building and applying AI in cybersecurity for over a decade, developing its capabilities alongside an increasingly complex and fast‑moving threat landscape. This experience has resulted in a mature, multi-layered approach to AI, which continuously learns the normal patterns of each organization to understand behavior, interpret context, and identify meaningful deviations — without relying on predefined rules or known attack signatures. Over time, this has enabled a proven behavioral understanding that helps uncover subtle signals of risk that may otherwise be missed.

With the backing of our ISO/IEC 42001 certification, stakeholders, customers, and partners can be confident that Darktrace is responsibly, ethically, and safely developing its AI systems, and managing the use of AI in day-to-day operations in a compliant and secure manner.

Explore the principles behind Darktrace’s responsible AI approach, informed by collaboration with global experts in academia and governments, detailing how accountability, explainability, and continuous validation are built into its cybersecurity technology.

How Darktrace secures AI systems

Darktrace now brings these capabilities to monitor and respond to risk generated from AI systems across organizations with Darktrace / SECURE AI. This solution analyzes how prompts, agents, and systems are used within the context of each organization, bringing every AI interaction into a single view. This unique approach helps teams understand intent, assess risk, protect sensitive data, and enforce policy across both human and AI agent activity.

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