August 17, 2023

Successfully Containing an Admin Credential Attack

Discover how Darktrace's anomaly-based threat detection thwarted a cyber-attack on a customer's network, stopping a malicious actor in their tracks.

Written by

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

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

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

Aug 2023

What is Admin Credential Abuse?

In an effort to remain undetected by increasingly vigilant security teams, malicious actors across the threat landscape often resort to techniques that allow them to remain ‘quiet’ on the network and carry out their objectives subtly. One such technique often employed by attackers is using highly privileged credentials to carry out malicious activity.

This emphasizes the need to be hyper vigilant and not assume that ‘administrative’ activity using privileged credentials is legitimate. In this way, both internal visibility and defense in-depth are needed, as well as a strong understanding of ‘normal’ administrative activity to then identify any deviations from this.

In one recent example, Darktrace identified a threat actor attempting to use privileged administrative credentials to move laterally through a customer’s network and compromise two further critical servers. Darktrace DETECT™ identified that this activity was unusual and alerted the customer to early signs of compromise, reconnaissance and lateral movement to the other critical devices, while Darktrace RESPOND™ acted autonomously to inhibit the spread of activity and allowed the customer to quarantine the compromised devices.

Attack Overview and Darktrace Coverage

Over the course of a week in late May 2023, Darktrace observed a compromise on the network of a customer in the Netherlands. The threat actors primarily used living off the land techniques, abusing legitimate administrative credentials and executables to perform unexpected activities. This technique is intended to go under the radar of traditional security tools that are often unable to distinguish between the legitimate or malicious use of privileged credentials.

Darktrace was the only security solution in the customer’s stack that way able to detect and contain the attack, preventing it from spreading through their digital estate.

1. Device Reactivated

On May 22, 2023, Darktrace began to observe traffic originating from a File Server device which prior to this, had been been inactive on the network for some time, with no incoming or outgoing traffic recently observed for this IP. Therefore, upon initiating connections again, Darktrace’s AI tagged the device with the “Re-Activated Device” label. It also tagged the device as an “Internet Facing System”, which could represent an initial point of compromise.

Following this, the device was observed using an administrative credential that was commonly used across network, with no clear indications of brute-force activity or successive login failures preceeding this activity. The unusual use of a known credential on a network can be very difficult to detect for traditional security tools. Darktrace’s anomaly-based detection allows it to recognize subtle deviations in device behavior meaning it is uniquely placed to recognize this type of activity.

2. Reconaissance

On the following day, the affected device began to perform SMB scans for open 445 ports, and writing files such as srvsvc and winreg, both of which are indicative of network reconnaissance. Srvsvc is used to enumerate available SMB shares on destination devices which could be used to then write malicious files to these shares, while Winreg (Windows Registry) is used to store information that configures users, applications, and hardware devices [1]. Darktrace also observed the device carrying out DCE_RPC activity and making Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) enumeration requests to other internal devices.

3. Lateral Movement via SMB

On May 24 and May 30, Darktrace observed the same device writing files over SMB to a number of other internal devices, including an SMB server and the Domain Controller. Darktrace identified that these writers were to privileged credential paths, such as C$ and ADMIN$, and it further recognized that the device was using the compromised administrative credential.

The files included remote command executable files (.exe) and batch scripts which execute commands upon clicking in a serial order. This behavior is indicative of a threat actor performing lateral movement in an attempt to infect other devices and strengthen their foothold in the network.

Files written:

· LogConverter.bat

· sql.bat

· Microsoft.NodejsTools.PressAnyKey.exe

· PSEXESVC.exe

· Microsoft.NodejsTools.PressAnyKey.lnk

· CG6oDkyFHl3R.t

5. Reconnaissance Spread

Around the same time as the observed lateral movement activity, between May 24 and May 30, the initially compromised device continued SMB and DCE_RPC activity, mainly involving SMB writes of files such as srvsvc, and PSEXESVC.exe.

Then, on May 28, Darktrace identified another internal Domain Controller engaging in similar suspicious behavior to the original compromised device. This included network scanning, enumeration and service control activity, indicating a spread of further malicious reconnaissance.

Following the successful detection of this activity, Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst launched autonomous investigations which was able to correlate incidents from multiple affected devices across the network, in doing so connecting multiple incidents into one security event.

Figure 1: Cyber AI Analyst connecting multiple events into one incident

Figure 2: Cyber AI Analyst investigation process to identify suspicious activity.

6. Lateral Movement

Alongside these SMB writes, the initially compromised device was seen connecting to various internal devices over ports associated with administrative protocols such as Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). It also made a high volume of NTLM login failures for the credential ‘administrator’, suggesting that the malicious actor was attempting to brute-force an administrative credential.

7. Suspicious External Activity

Following earlier SMB writes from the initially compromised device to the Domain Controller server, the Domain Controller was seen making an unusual volume of external connections to rare endpoints which could indicate malicious command and control (C2) communication.

Alongside this activity, between May 30 and June 1, Darktrace also observed an unusually large number (over 12 million) of incoming connections from external endpoints. This activity is likely indicative of an attempted Denial of Service (DoS) attack.

Endpoints include:

· 45.15.145[.]92

· 198.2.200[.]89

· 162.211.180[.]215

Figure 3: Graphing function in the Darktrace UI showing the observed spike of inbound communication from external endpoints, indicating a potential DoS attack.

8. Reconnaissance and RDP activity

On May 31, the initially compromised device was seen creating an administrative RDP session with cookie ‘Administr’. Using the initially compromised administrative credential, further suspicious SMB activity was observed from the compromised devices on the same day including further SMB Enumeration, service control, PsExec remote command execution, and writes of another suspicious batch script file to various internal devices.

Darktrace RESPOND Coverage

Darktrace RESPOND’s autonomous response capabilities allowed it to take instantaneous preventative action against the affected devices as soon as suspicious activity was identified, consequently inhibiting the spread of this attack.

Specifically, Darktrace RESPOND was able to block suspicious connections to multiple internal devices and ports, among them port 445 which was used by threat actors to perform SMB scanning, for one hour. As a result of the autonomous actions carried out by Darktrace, the attack was stopped at the earliest possible stage.

Figure 4: Autonomous RESPOND actions taken against initially compromised devices.

In addition to these autonomous actions, the customer was able to further utilize RESPOND for containment purposes by manually actioning some of the more severe actions suggested by RESPOND, such as quarantining compromised devices from the rest of the network for a week.

Figure 5: Manually applied RESPOND actions to quarantine compromised devices for one week.

Conclusion

As attackers continue to employ harder to detect living off the land techniques to exploit administrative credentials and move laterally across networks, it is paramount for organizations to have an intelligent decision maker that can recgonize the subtle deviations in device behavior.

Thanks to its Self-Learning AI, Darktrace is uniquely placed to understand its customer’s networks, allowing it to recognize unusual or uncommon activity for individual devices or user credentials, irrespective of whether this activity is typically considered as legitimate.

In this case, Darktrace was the only solution in the customer’s security stack that successfully identified and mitigated this attack. Darktrace DETECT was able to identify the the early stages of the compromise and provide full visibility over the kill chain. Meanwhile, Darktrace RESPOND moved at machine-speed, blocking suspicious connections and preventing the compromise from spreading across the customer’s network.

Appendices

Darktrace DETECT Model Breaches

Anomalous Connection / High Volume of New or Uncommon Service Control

Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Control

Anomalous Connection / SMB Enumeration

Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin RDP Session

Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin SMB Session

Anomalous File / Internal / Executable Uploaded to DC

Anomalous File / Internal / Unusual SMB Script Write

Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server

Anomalous Server Activity / Possible Denial of Service Activity

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena Network Scan Block

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena SMB Enumeration Block

Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Enhanced Monitoring from Server Block

Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block

Compliance / Outgoing NTLM Request from DC

Compliance / SMB Drive Write

Device / Anomalous NTLM Brute Force

Device / ICMP Address Scan

Device / Internet Facing Device with High Priority Alert

Device / Large Number of Model Breaches

Device / Large Number of Model Breaches from Critical Network Device

Device / Multiple Lateral Movement Model Breaches

Device / Network Scan

Device / New or Uncommon SMB Named Pipe

Device / New or Uncommon WMI Activity

Device / New or Unusual Remote Command Execution

Device / Possible SMB/NTLM Brute Force

Device / RDP Scan

Device / SMB Lateral Movement

Device / SMB Session Brute Force (Admin)

Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

Darktrace RESPOND Model Breaches

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena Network Scan Block

Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena SMB Enumeration Block

Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Enhanced Monitoring from Server Block

Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block

Cyber AI Analyst Incidents

Extensive Suspicious Remote WMI Activity

Extensive Unusual Administrative Connections

Large Volume of SMB Login Failures from Multiple Devices

Port Scanning

Scanning of Multiple Devices

SMB Writes of Suspicious Files

Suspicious Chain of Administrative Connections

Suspicious DCE_RPC Activity

TCP Scanning of Multiple Devices

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

‍RECONNAISSANCE
T1595 Active Scanning
T1589.001 Gathering Credentials

CREDENTIAL ACCESS
T1110 Brute Force

LATERAL MOVEMENT
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services
T1021.001 Remote Desktop Protocol

COMMAND AND CONTROL
T1071 Application Layer Protocol

IMPACT
T1498.001 Direct Network Flood

References

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/performance/windows-registry-advanced-users

Written by

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

Inside the SOC

Written by

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

Product Marketing Manager, OT Security & Compliance

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

Email

September 30, 2025

Out of Character: Detecting Vendor Compromise and Trusted Relationship Abuse with Darktrace

What is Vendor Email Compromise?

Vendor Email Compromise (VEC) refers to an attack where actors breach a third-party provider to exploit their access, relationships, or systems for malicious purposes. The initially compromised entities are often the target’s existing partners, though this can extend to any organization or individual the target is likely to trust.

It sits at the intersection of supply chain attacks and business email compromise (BEC), blending technical exploitation with trust-based deception. Attackers often infiltrate existing conversations, leveraging AI to mimic tone and avoid common spelling and grammar pitfalls. Malicious content is typically hosted on otherwise reputable file sharing platforms, meaning any shared links initially seem harmless.

While techniques to achieve initial access may have evolved, the goals remain familiar. Threat actors harvest credentials, launch subsequent phishing campaigns, attempt to redirect invoice payments for financial gain, and exfiltrate sensitive corporate data.

Why traditional defenses fall short

These subtle and sophisticated email attacks pose unique challenges for defenders. Few busy people would treat an ongoing conversation with a trusted contact with the same level of suspicion as an email from the CEO requesting ‘URGENT ASSISTANCE!’ Unfortunately, many traditional secure email gateways (SEGs) struggle with this too. Detecting an out-of-character email, when it does not obviously appear out of character, is a complex challenge. It’s hardly surprising, then, that 83% of organizations have experienced a security incident involving third-party vendors [1].

This article explores how Darktrace detected four different vendor compromise campaigns for a single customer, within a two-week period in 2025. Darktrace / EMAIL successfully identified the subtle indicators that these seemingly benign emails from trusted senders were, in fact, malicious. Due to the configuration of Darktrace / EMAIL in this customer’s environment, it was unable to take action against the malicious emails. However, if fully enabled to take Autonomous Response, it would have held all offending emails identified.

How does Darktrace detect vendor compromise?

The answer lies at the core of how Darktrace operates: anomaly detection. Rather than relying on known malicious rules or signatures, Darktrace learns what ‘normal’ looks like for an environment, then looks for anomalies across a wide range of metrics. Despite the resourcefulness of the threat actors involved in this case, Darktrace identified many anomalies across these campaigns.

Different campaigns, common traits

A wide variety of approaches was observed. Individuals, shared mailboxes and external contractors were all targeted. Two emails originated from compromised current vendors, while two came from unknown compromised organizations - one in an associated industry. The sender organizations were either familiar or, at the very least, professional in appearance, with no unusual alphanumeric strings or suspicious top-level domains (TLDs). Subject line, such as “New Approved Statement From [REDACTED]” and “[REDACTED] - Proposal Document” appeared unremarkable and were not designed to provoke heightened emotions like typical social engineering or BEC attempts.

All emails had been given a Microsoft Spam Confidence Level of 1, indicating Microsoft did not consider them to be spam or malicious [2]. They also passed authentication checks (including SPF, and in some cases DKIM and DMARC), meaning they appeared to originate from an authentic source for the sender domain and had not been tampered with in transit.

All observed phishing emails contained a link hosted on a legitimate and commonly used file-sharing site. These sites were often convincingly themed, frequently featuring the name of a trusted vendor either on the page or within the URL, to appear authentic and avoid raising suspicion. However, these links served only as the initial step in a more complex, multi-stage phishing process.

‍

Figure 1: A legitimate file sharing site used in phishing emails to host a secondary malicious link.

Figure 2: Another example of a legitimate file sharing endpoint sent in a phishing email and used to host a malicious link.

If followed, the recipient would be redirected, sometimes via CAPTCHA, to fake Microsoft login pages designed to capturing credentials, namely http://pub-ac94c05b39aa4f75ad1df88d384932b8.r2[.]dev/offline[.]html and https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws[.]com/s3cure0line-0365cql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2ml0qin/s3cccql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2%26l0qn[.]html#.

The latter made use of homoglyphs to deceive the user, with a link referencing ‘s3cure0line’, rather than ‘secureonline’. Post-incident investigation using open-source intelligence (OSINT) confirmed that the domains were linked to malicious phishing endpoints [3] [4].

Figure 3: Fake Microsoft login page designed to harvest credentials.

Figure 4: Phishing kit with likely AI-generated image, designed to harvest user credentials. The URL uses ‘s3cure0line’ instead of ‘secureonline’, a subtle misspelling intended to deceive users.

Darktrace Anomaly Detection

Some senders were unknown to the network, with no previous outbound or inbound emails. Some had sent the email to multiple undisclosed recipients using BCC, an unusual behavior for a new sender.

Where the sender organization was an existing vendor, Darktrace recognized out-of-character behavior, in this case it was the first time a link to a particular file-sharing site had been shared. Often the links themselves exhibited anomalies, either being unusually prominent or hidden altogether - masked by text or a clickable image.

Crucially, Darktrace / EMAIL is able to identify malicious links at the time of processing the emails, without needing to visit the URLs or analyze the destination endpoints, meaning even the most convincing phishing pages cannot evade detection – meaning even the most convincing phishing emails cannot evade detection. This sets it apart from many competitors who rely on crawling the endpoints present in emails. This, among other things, risks disruption to user experience, such as unsubscribing them from emails, for instance.

Darktrace was also able to determine that the malicious emails originated from a compromised mailbox, using a series of behavioral and contextual metrics to make the identification. Upon analysis of the emails, Darktrace autonomously assigned several contextual tags to highlight their concerning elements, indicating that the messages contained phishing links, were likely sent from a compromised account, and originated from a known correspondent exhibiting out-of-character behavior.

A summary of the anomalous email, confirming that it contained a highly suspicious link. — Figure 5: Tags assigned to offending emails by Darktrace / EMAIL.

‍

Figure 6: A summary of the anomalous email, confirming that it contained a highly suspicious link.

Out-of-character behavior caught in real-time

In another customer environment around the same time Darktrace / EMAIL detected multiple emails with carefully crafted, contextually appropriate subject lines sent from an established correspondent being sent to 30 different recipients. In many cases, the attacker hijacked existing threads and inserted their malicious emails into an ongoing conversation in an effort to blend in and avoid detection. As in the previous, the attacker leveraged a well-known service, this time ClickFunnels, to host a document containing another malicious link. Once again, they were assigned a Microsoft Spam Confidence Level of 1, indicating that they were not considered malicious.

Figure 7: The legitimate ClickFunnels page used to host a malicious phishing link.

This time, however, the customer had Darktrace / EMAIL fully enabled to take Autonomous Response against suspicious emails. As a result, when Darktrace detected the out-of-character behavior, specifically, the sharing of a link to a previously unused file-sharing domain, and identified the likely malicious intent of the message, it held the email, preventing it from reaching recipients’ inboxes and effectively shutting down the attack.

Figure 8: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of malicious emails inserted into an existing thread.*

*To preserve anonymity, all real customer names, email addresses, and other identifying details have been redacted and replaced with fictitious placeholders.

Legitimate messages in the conversation were assigned an Anomaly Score of 0, while the newly inserted malicious emails identified and were flagged with the maximum score of 100.

Key takeaways for defenders

Phishing remains big business, and as the landscape evolves, today’s campaigns often look very different from earlier versions. As with network-based attacks, threat actors are increasingly leveraging legitimate tools and exploiting trusted relationships to carry out their malicious goals, often staying under the radar of security teams and traditional email defenses.

As attackers continue to exploit trusted relationships between organizations and their third-party associates, security teams must remain vigilant to unexpected or suspicious email activity. Protecting the digital estate requires an email solution capable of identifying malicious characteristics, even when they originate from otherwise trusted senders.

Credit to Jennifer Beckett (Cyber Analyst), Patrick Anjos (Senior Cyber Analyst), Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead), Kiri Addison (Director of Product)

Appendices

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence

- http://pub-ac94c05b39aa4f75ad1df88d384932b8.r2[.]dev/offline[.]html#p – fake Microsoft login page

- https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws[.]com/s3cure0line-0365cql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2ml0qin/s3cccql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2%26l0qn[.]html# - link to domain used in homoglyph attack

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique – Sub-Technique

Initial Access - Phishing – (T1566)

References

1. https://gitnux.org/third-party-risk-statistics/

2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-office-365/anti-spam-spam-confidence-level-scl-about

3. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/5df9aae8f78445a590f674d7b64c69630c1473c294ce5337d73732c03ab7fca2/detection

4. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/695d0d173d1bd4755eb79952704e3f2f2b87d1a08e2ec660b98a4cc65f6b2577/details

^{The content provided in this blog is published by Darktrace for general informational purposes only and reflects our understanding of cybersecurity topics, trends, incidents, and developments at the time of publication. While we strive to ensure accuracy and relevance, the information is provided “as is” without any representations or warranties, express or implied. Darktrace makes no guarantees regarding the completeness, accuracy, reliability, or timeliness of any information presented and expressly disclaims all warranties.}

^{Nothing in this blog constitutes legal, technical, or professional advice, and readers should consult qualified professionals before acting on any information contained herein. Any references to third-party organizations, technologies, threat actors, or incidents are for informational purposes only and do not imply affiliation, endorsement, or recommendation.}

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About the author

Jennifer Beckett

Cyber Analyst

Blog

OT

October 1, 2025

Announcing Unified OT Security with Dedicated OT Workflows, Segmentation-Aware Risk Insights, and Next-Gen Endpoint Visibility for Industrial Teams

The challenge of convergence without clarity

Convergence is no longer a roadmap idea, it is the daily reality for industrial security teams. As Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) environments merge, the line between a cyber incident and an operational disruption grows increasingly hard to define. A misconfigured firewall rule can lead to downtime. A protocol misuse might look like a glitch. And when a pump stalls but nothing appears in the Security Operations Center (SOC) dashboard, teams are left asking: is this operational or is this a threat?

The lack of shared context slows down response, creates friction between SOC analysts and plant engineers, and leaves organizations vulnerable at exactly the points where IT and OT converge. Defenders need more than alerts, they need clarity that both sides can trust.

The breakthrough with Darktrace / OT

This latest Darktrace / OT release was built to deliver exactly that. It introduces shared context between Security, IT, and OT operations, helping reduce friction and close the security gaps at the intersection of these domains.

With a dedicated dashboard built for operations teams, extended visibility into endpoints for new forms of detection and CVE collection, expanded protocol coverage, and smarter risk modeling aligned to segmentation policies, teams can now operate from a shared source of truth. These enhancements are not just incremental upgrades, they are foundational improvements designed to bring clarity, efficiency, and trust to converged environments.

A dashboard built for OT engineers

The new Operational Overview provides OT engineers with a workspace designed for them, not for SOC analysts. It brings asset management, risk insights and operational alerts into one place. Engineers can now see activity like firmware changes, controller reprograms or the sudden appearance of a new workstation on the network, providing a tailored view for critical insights and productivity gains without navigating IT-centric workflows. Each device view is now enriched with cross-linked intelligence, make, model, firmware version and the roles inferred by Self-Learning AI, making it easier to understand how each asset behaves, what function it serves, and where it fits within the broader industrial process. By suppressing IT-centric noise, the dashboard highlights only the anomalies that matter to operations, accelerating triage, enabling smoother IT/OT collaboration, and reducing time to root cause without jumping between tools.

This is usability with purpose, a view that matches OT workflows and accelerates response.

Figure 1: The Operational Overview provides an intuitive dashboard summarizing all OT Assets, Alerts, and Risk.

Full-spectrum coverage across endpoints, sensors and protocols

The release also extends visibility into areas that have traditionally been blind spots. Engineering workstations, Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), contractor laptops and field devices are often the entry points for attackers, yet the hardest to monitor.

Darktrace introduces Network Endpoint eXtended Telemetry (NEXT) for OT, a lightweight collector built for segmented and resource-constrained environments. NEXT for OT uses Endpoint sensors to capture localized network, and now process-level telemetry, placing it in context alongside other network and asset data to:

Identify vulnerabilities and OS data, which is leveraged by OT Risk Management for risk scoring and patching prioritization, removing the need for third-party CVE collection.

Surface novel threats using Self-Learning AI that standalone Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) would miss.

Extend Cyber AI Analyst investigations through to the endpoint root cause.

NEXT is part of our existing cSensor endpoint agent, can be deployed standalone or alongside existing EDR tools, and allows capabilities to be enabled or disabled depending on factors such as security or OT team objectives and resource utilization.

Figure 2: Darktrace / OT delivers CVE patch priority insights by combining threat intelligence with extended network and endpoint telemetry

The family of Darktrace Endpoint sensors also receive a boost in deployment flexibility, with on-prem server-based setups, as well as a Windows driver tailored for zero-trust and high-security environments.

Protocol coverage has been extended where it matters most. Darktrace now performs protocol analysis of a wider range of GE and Mitsubishi protocols, giving operators real-time visibility into commands and state changes on Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), robots and controllers. Backed by Self-Learning AI, this inspection does more than parse traffic, it understands what normal looks like and flags deviations that signal risk.

Integrated risk and governance workflows

Security data is only valuable when it drives action. Darktrace / OT delivers risk insights that go beyond patching, helping teams take meaningful steps even when remediation isn't possible. Risk is assessed not just by CVE presence, but by how network segmentation, firewall policies, and attack path logic neutralize or contain real-world exposure. This approach empowers defenders to deprioritize low-impact vulnerabilities and focus effort where risk truly exists. Building on the foundation introduced in release 6.3, such as KEV enrichment, endpoint OS data, and exploit mapping, this release introduces new integrations that bring Darktrace / OT intelligence directly into governance workflows.

Fortinet FortiGate firewall ingestion feeds segmentation rules into attack path modeling, revealing real exposure when policies fail and closing feeds into patching prioritization based on a policy to CVE exposure assessment.

ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB) sync ensures asset intelligence stays current across governance platforms, eliminating manual inventory work.

Risk modeling has also been made more operationally relevant. Scores are now contextualized by exploitability, asset criticality, firewall policy, and segmentation posture. Patch recommendations are modeled in terms of safety, uptime and compliance rather than just Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) numbers. And importantly, risk is prioritized across the Purdue Model, giving defenders visibility into whether vulnerabilities remain isolated to IT or extend into OT-critical layers.

Figure 3: Attack Path Modeling based on NetFlow and network topology reveals high risk points of IT/OT convergence.

The real-world impact for defenders

In today’s environments, attackers move fluidly between IT and OT. Without unified visibility and shared context, incidents cascade faster than teams can respond.

With this release, Darktrace / OT changes that reality. The Operational Overview gives Engineers a dashboard they can use daily, tailored to their workflows. SOC analysts can seamlessly investigate telemetry across endpoints, sensors and protocols that were once blind spots. Operators gain transparency into PLCs and controllers. Governance teams benefit from automated integrations with platforms like Fortinet and ServiceNow. And all stakeholders work from risk models that reflect what truly matters: safety, uptime and compliance.

This release is not about creating more alerts. It is about providing more clarity. By unifying context across IT and OT, Darktrace / OT enables defenders to see more, understand more and act faster.

Because in environments where safety and uptime are non-negotiable, clarity is what matters most.

Join us for our live event where we will discuss these product innovations in greater detail

About the author

Pallavi Singh

Product Marketing Manager, OT Security & Compliance

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Successfully Containing an Admin Credential Attack

What is Admin Credential Abuse?

Attack Overview and Darktrace Coverage

1. Device Reactivated

2. Reconaissance

3. Lateral Movement via SMB

5. Reconnaissance Spread

6. Lateral Movement

7. Suspicious External Activity

8. Reconnaissance and RDP activity

Darktrace RESPOND Coverage

Conclusion

Appendices

Darktrace DETECT Model Breaches

Darktrace RESPOND Model Breaches

Cyber AI Analyst Incidents

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

References

Out of Character: Detecting Vendor Compromise and Trusted Relationship Abuse with Darktrace

Announcing Unified OT Security with Dedicated OT Workflows, Segmentation-Aware Risk Insights, and Next-Gen Endpoint Visibility for Industrial Teams

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The Benefits of Bringing Together Network and Email Security

Blog

Email

September 30, 2025

Out of Character: Detecting Vendor Compromise and Trusted Relationship Abuse with Darktrace

What is Vendor Email Compromise?

Why traditional defenses fall short

How does Darktrace detect vendor compromise?

Different campaigns, common traits

Darktrace Anomaly Detection

Out-of-character behavior caught in real-time

Key takeaways for defenders

Appendices

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique – Sub-Technique

References

Blog

OT

October 1, 2025

Announcing Unified OT Security with Dedicated OT Workflows, Segmentation-Aware Risk Insights, and Next-Gen Endpoint Visibility for Industrial Teams

The challenge of convergence without clarity

The breakthrough with Darktrace / OT

A dashboard built for OT engineers

Full-spectrum coverage across endpoints, sensors and protocols

Integrated risk and governance workflows

The real-world impact for defenders

Join us for our live event where we will discuss these product innovations in greater detail