Press Release
Updated statement regarding LockBit claims
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
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
Darktrace Half-Year Threat Report 2024 Reveals Persistent Cybercrime-as-a-Service Threats Amidst Evolving Attack Landscape
- Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) and Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) continue to dominate the threat landscape
- Email phishing remains a top threat, with 17.8million phishing emails detected between December 2023 and July 2024, and 62% by passing DMARC checks designed to safeguard against unauthorized use
- Emergence of new threats such as Qilinransomware and increased exploitation of edge infrastructure vulnerabilities
Darktrace, a global leader in cybersecurity AI, has today released its “First 6: Half-Year Threat Report 2024,” identifying key threats and attack methods facing businesses across the first half of 2024.These insights, observed by Darktrace's Threat Research team using its unique Self-Learning AI across its customer fleet, shed light on the persistent nature of cyber threats and new techniques adopted by attackers attempting to side step traditional defenses.
"The threat landscape continues to evolve, but new threats often build upon old foundations rather than replacing them. While we have observed the emergence of new malware families, many attacks are carried out by the usual suspects that we have seen over the last few years, still utilizing familiar techniques and malware variants,” comments Nathaniel Jones, Director of Strategic Threat and Engagement at Darktrace. "The persistence of MaaS/RaaS service models alongside the emergence of newer threats like Qilin ransomware underscores the continued need for adaptive, machine learning powered, security measures that can keep pace with a rapidly evolving threatlandscape."
Cybercrime-as-a-Service continues to pose significant risk for organizations
The findings show that cybercrime-as-a-service continues to dominate the threat landscape, with Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) and Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) tools making up a significant portion of malicious tools in use by attackers. Cybercrime-as-a-Service groups, such as Lockbit and Black Basta, provide attackers with everything from pre-made malware to templates for phishing emails, lowering the barrier to entry for cybercriminals with limited technical knowledge.
The most common threats Darktrace observed from January toJune 2024 were:
1. Information-stealing malware (29% of early triaged investigations)
2. Trojans (15% of investigated threats)
3. Remote Access Trojans (RATs) (12% of investigated threats)
4. Botnets (6% of investigated threats)
5. Loaders (6% of investigated threats)
The report also reveals the emergence of new threats alongside persistent ones. Notably, the rise of Qilin ransomware, which employs refined tactics such as rebooting infected machines in safe mode to bypass security tools and making it more difficult for human security teams to react quickly.
Per the report, double extortion methods are now prevalent amongst ransomware strains. As ransomware continues to be a top security concern for organizations, Darktrace’s Threat Research Team has identified three predominant ransomware strains impacting customers: Akira, Lockbit and Black Basta. All three have been observed using double extortion methods.
Email phishing and sophisticated evasion tactics rise
Phishing remains a significant threat to organizations. Darktrace detected 17.8 million phishing emails across its customer fleet between December 21, 2023, and July 5, 2024. Alarmingly, 62% of these emails successfully bypassed Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) verification checks which are industry protocols designed to protect email domains from unauthorized use, and 56% passed through all existing security layers.
The report highlights how cybercriminals are embracing more sophisticated tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) designed to evade traditional security parameters. Darktrace observed an increase in attackers leveraging popular, legitimate third-party services and sites, such as Dropbox and Slack, in their operations to blend in with normal network traffic. Additionally, there's been a spike in the use of covert command and control (C2) mechanisms, including remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, tunneling,and proxy services.
Edge infrastructure compromise and exploitation of critical vulnerabilities are top concerns
Darktrace observed an increase in mass-exploitation ofvulnerabilities in edge infrastructure devices, particularly those related to Ivanti Connect Secure, JetBrains Team City, FortiClient Enterprise Management Server, and Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS. These compromises often serve as a springboard for further malicious activities.
It is imperative that organizations do not lose sight of existing attack trends and CVEs – cybercriminals may resort to previous, predominately dormant methods to trick organizations. Between January and June, in 40% of cases investigated by the Threat Research team, attackers exploited Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs).
For more in-depth analysis, download the First 6: Half-Year Threat Report 2024 at https://darktrace.com/resources/first-6-half-year-threat-report-2024
ABOUT DARKTRACE
Darktrace (DARK.L), a global leader in cybersecurity artificial intelligence, is on a mission to free the world from cyber disruption. Breakthrough innovations from our R&D teams in Cambridge, UK, and The Hague, Netherlands have resulted in over 200 patent applications filed. Rather than study historic attacks, Darktrace's technology continuously learns and updates its knowledge of your business data and applies that understanding to help transform security operations to a state of proactive cyber resilience. The Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform™ provides a full lifecycle approach to cyber resilience that can autonomously spot and respond to known and unknown in progress threats within seconds across the entire organization, including cloud, apps, email, endpoint, network and operational technology (OT). Darktrace, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021, employs over 2,400 people around the world and protects over 9,700 customers globally from advanced cyber threats. To learn more, visit https://darktrace.com/.
Darktrace Half-Year Threat Report 2024 Reveals Persistent Cybercrime-as-a-Service Threats Amidst Evolving Attack Landscape
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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'
About Darktrace
