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February 24, 2025

Detecting and Containing Account Takeover with Darktrace

Account takeovers are rising with SaaS adoption. Learn how Darktrace detects deviations in user behavior and autonomously stops threats before they escalate.
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
Min Kim
Cyber Security Analyst
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24
Feb 2025

Thanks to its accessibility from anywhere with an internet connection and a web browser, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms have become nearly universal across organizations worldwide. However, with this growing popularity comes greater responsibility. Increased attention attracts a larger audience, including those who may seek to exploit these widely used services. One crucial factor to be vigilant about in the SaaS landscape is safeguarding internal credentials. Minimal protection on accounts can lead to SaaS hijacking, which could allow further escalations within the network.

How does SaaS account takeover work?

SaaS hijacking occurs when a malicious actor takes control of a user’s active session with a SaaS application. Attackers can achieve this through various methods, including employees using company credentials on compromised or spoofed external websites, brute-force attacks, social engineering, and exploiting outdated software or applications.

After the hijack, attackers may escalate their actions by changing email rules and using internal addresses for additional social engineering attacks. The larger goal of these actions is often to steal internal data, damage reputations, and disrupt operations.

Account takeover protection

It has become essential to have security tools capable of outsmarting potential malicious actors. Traditional tools that rely on rules and signatures may not be able to identify new events, such as logins or activities from a rare endpoint, unless they come from a known malicious source.

Darktrace relies on analysis of user and network behavior, tailored to each customer, allowing it to identify anomalous events that the user typically does not engage in. In this way, unusual SaaS activities can be detected, and unwanted actions can be halted to allow time for remediation before further escalations.

The following cases, drawn from the global customer base, illustrate how Darktrace detects potential SaaS hijack attempts and further escalations, and applies appropriate actions when necessary.

Case 1: Unusual login after a phishing email

A customer in the US received a suspicious email that seemed to be from the legitimate file storage service, Dropbox. However, Darktrace identified that the reply-to email address, hremployeepyaroll@mail[.]com, was masquerading as one associated with the customer’s Human Resources (HR) department.

Further inspection of this sender address revealed that the attacker had intentionally misspelled ‘payroll’ to trick recipients into believing it was legitimate

Furthermore, the subject of the email indicated that the attackers were attempting a social engineering attack by sharing a file related to pay raises and benefits to capture the recipients' attention and increase the likelihood of their targets engaging with the email and its attachment.

Figure 1: Subject of the phishing email.
Figure 1: Subject of the phishing email.

Unknowingly, the recipient, who believed the email to be a legitimate HR communication, acted on it, allowing malicious attackers to gain access to the account. Following this, the recipient’s account was observed logging in from a rare location using multi-factor authentication (MFA) while also being active from another more commonly observed location, indicating that the SaaS account had been compromised.

Darktrace’s Autonomous Response action triggered by an anomalous email received by an internal user, followed by a failed login attempt from a rare external source.
Figure 2: Darktrace’s Autonomous Response action triggered by an anomalous email received by an internal user, followed by a failed login attempt from a rare external source.

Darktrace subsequently observed the SaaS actor creating new inbox rules on the account. These rules were intended to mark as read and move any emails mentioning the file storage company, whether in the subject or body, to the ‘Conversation History’ folder. This was likely an attempt by the threat actor to hide any outgoing phishing emails or related correspondence from the legitimate account user, as the ‘Conversation History’ folder typically goes unread by most users.

Typically, Darktrace / EMAIL would have instantly placed the phishing email in the junk folder before they reached user’s inbox, while also locking the links identified in the suspicious email, preventing them from being accessed. Due to specific configurations within the customer’s deployment, this did not happen, and the email remained accessible to the user.

Case 2: Login using unusual credentials followed by password change

In the latter half of 2024, Darktrace detected an unusual use of credentials when a SaaS actor attempted to sign into a customer’s Microsoft 365 application from an unfamiliar IP address in the US. Darktrace recognized that since the customer was located within the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, a login from the US was unexpected and suspicious. Around the same time, the legitimate account owner logged into the customer’s SaaS environment from another location – this time from a South African IP, which was commonly seen within the environment and used by other internal SaaS accounts.

Darktrace understood that this activity was highly suspicious and unlikely to be legitimate, given one of the IPs was known and expected, while the other had never been seen before in the environment, and the simultaneous logins from two distant locations were geographically impossible.

Model alert in Darktrace / IDENTITY: Detecting a login from a different source while the user is already active from another source.
Figure 3: Model alert in Darktrace / IDENTITY: Detecting a login from a different source while the user is already active from another source.

Darktrace detected several unusual login attempts, including a successful login from an uncommon US source. Subsequently, Darktrace / NETWORK identified the device associated with this user making external connections to rare endpoints, some of which were only two weeks old. As this customer had integrated Darktrace with Microsoft Defender, the Darktrace detection was enriched by Defender, adding the additional context that the user had likely been compromised in an Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) phishing attack. AiTM phishing attacks occur when a malicious attacker intercepts communications between a user and a legitimate authentication service, potentially leading to account hijacking. These attacks are harder to identify as they can bypass security measures like MFA.

Following this, Darktrace observed the attacker using the now compromised credentials to access password management and change the account's password. Such behavior is common in account takeover incidents, as attackers seek to maintain persistence within the SaaS environment.

While Darktrace’s Autonomous Response was not fully configured on the customer’s SaaS environment, they were subscribed to the Managed Threat Detection service offered by Darktrace’s Security Operations Center (SOC). This 24/7 service ensures that Darktrace’s analysts monitor and investigate emerging suspicious activity, informing customers in real-time. As such, the customer received notification of the compromise and were able to quickly take action to prevent further escalation.

Case 3: Unusual logins, new email rules and outbound spam

Recently, Darktrace has observed a trend in SaaS compromises involving unusual logins, followed by the creation of new email rules, and then outbound spam or phishing campaigns being launched from these accounts.

In October, Darktrace identified a SaaS user receiving an email with the subject line "Re: COMPANY NAME Request for Documents" from an unknown sender using a freemail  account. As freemail addresses require very little personal information to create, threat actors can easily create multiple accounts for malicious purposes while retaining their anonymity.

Within the identified email, Darktrace found file storage links that were likely intended to divert recipients to fraudulent or malicious websites upon interaction. A few minutes after the email was received, the recipient was seen logging in from three different sources located in the US, UK, and the Philippines, all around a similar time. As the customer was based in the Philippines, a login from there was expected and not unusual. However, Darktrace understood that the logins from the UK and US were highly unusual, and no other SaaS accounts had connected from these locations within the same week.

After successfully logging in from the UK, the actor was observed updating a mailbox rule, renaming it to ‘.’ and changing its parameters to move any inbound emails to the deleted items folder and mark them as read.

Figure 4: The updated email rule intended to move any inbound emails to the deleted items folder.

Malicious actors often use ambiguous names like punctuation marks, repetitive letters, and unreadable words to name resources, disguising their rules to avoid detection by legitimate users or administrators. Similarly, attackers have been known to adjust existing rule parameters rather than creating new rules to keep their footprints untracked. In this case, the rule was updated to override an existing email rule and delete all incoming emails. This ensured that any inbound emails, including responses to potential phishing emails sent by the account, would be deleted, allowing the attacker to remain undetected.

Over the next two days, additional login attempts, both successful and failed, were observed from locations in the UK and the Philippines. Darktrace noted multiple logins from the Philippines where the legitimate user was attempting to access their account using a password that had recently expired or been changed, indicating that the attacker had altered the user’s original password as well.

Following this chain of events, over 500 emails titled “Reminder For Document Signed Agreement.10/28/2024” were sent from the SaaS actor’s account to external recipients, all belonging to a different organization within the Philippines.

These emails contained rare attachments with a ‘.htm’ extension, which included programming language that could initiate harmful processes on devices. While inherently not malicious, if used inappropriately, these files could perform unwanted actions such as code execution, malware downloads, redirects to malicious webpages, or phishing upon opening.

Outbound spam seen from the hijacked SaaS account containing a ‘.htm’ attachment.
Figure 5: Outbound spam seen from the hijacked SaaS account containing a ‘.htm’ attachment.

As this customer did not have Autonomous Response enabled for Darktrace / IDENTITY, the unusual activity went unattended, and the compromise was able to escalate to the point of a spam email campaign being launched from the account.

In a similar example on a customer network in EMEA, Darktrace detected unusual logins and the creation of new email rules from a foreign location through a SaaS account. However, in this instance, Autonomous Response was enabled and automatically disabled the compromised account, preventing further malicious activity and giving the customer valuable time to implement their own remediation measures.

Conclusion

Whether it is an unexpected login or an unusual sequence of events – such as a login followed by a phishing email being sent – unauthorized or unexpected activities can pose a significant risk to an organization’s SaaS environment. The threat becomes even greater when these activities escalate to account hijacking, with the compromised account potentially providing attackers access to sensitive corporate data. Organizations, therefore, must have robust SaaS security measures in place to prevent data theft, ensure compliance and maintain continuity and trust.

The Darktrace suite of products is well placed to detect and contain SaaS hijack attempts at multiple stages of an attack. Darktrace / EMAIL identifies initial phishing emails that attackers use to gain access to customer SaaS environments, while Darktrace / IDENTITY detects anomalous SaaS behavior on user accounts which could indicate they have been taken over by a malicious actor.

By identifying these threats in a timely manner and taking proactive mitigative measures, such as logging or disabling compromised accounts, Darktrace prevents escalation and ensures customers have sufficient time to response effectively.

Credit to Min Kim (Cyber Analyst) and Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

[related-resource]

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections Case 1

SaaS / Compromise / SaaS Anomaly Following Anomalous Login

SaaS / Compromise / Unusual Login and New Email Rule

SaaS / Compliance / Anomalous New Email Rule

SaaS / Unusual Activity / Multiple Unusual SaaS Activities

SaaS / Access / Unusual External Source for SaaS Credential Us

SaaS / Compromise / Login From Rare Endpoint While User is Active

SaaS / Email Nexus / Unusual Login Location Following Link to File Storage

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Email Rule Block (Autonomous Response)

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Suspicious SaaS Activity Block (Autonomous Response)

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Enhanced Monitoring from SaaS User Block (Autonomous Response)

List of Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

176.105.224[.]132 – IP address – Unusual SaaS Activity Source

hremployeepyaroll@mail[.]com – Email address – Reply-to email address

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Cloud Accounts – DEFENSE EVASION, PERSISTENCE, PRIVILEGE ESCALATION, INITIAL ACCESS – T1078

Outlook Rules – PERSISTENCE – T1137

Cloud Service Dashboard – DISCOVERY – T1538

Compromise Accounts – RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT – T1586

Steal Web Session Cookie – CREDENTIAL ACCESS – T1539

Darktrace Model Detections Case 2

SaaS / Compromise / SaaS Anomaly Following Anomalous Login

SaaS / Compromise / Unusual Login and Account Update

Security Integration / High Severity Integration Detection

SaaS / Access / Unusual External Source for SaaS Credential Use

SaaS / Compromise / Login From Rare Endpoint While User Is Active

SaaS / Compromise / Login from Rare High Risk Endpoint

SaaS / Access / M365 High Risk Level Login

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Suspicious SaaS Activity Block (Autonomous Response)

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Enhanced Monitoring from SaaS user Block (Autonomous Response)

List of IoCs

74.207.252[.]129 – IP Address – Suspicious SaaS Activity Source

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Cloud Accounts – DEFENSE EVASION, PERSISTENCE, PRIVILEGE ESCALATION, INITIAL ACCESS – T1078

Cloud Service Dashboard – DISCOVERY – T1538

Compromise Accounts – RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT – T1586

Steal Web Session Cookie – CREDENTIAL ACCESS – T1539

Darktrace Model Detections Case 3

SaaS / Compromise / Unusual Login and Outbound Email Spam

SaaS / Compromise / New Email Rule and Unusual Email Activity

SaaS / Compromise / Unusual Login and New Email Rule

SaaS / Email Nexus / Unusual Login Location Following Sender Spoof

SaaS / Email Nexus / Unusual Login Location Following Link to File Storage

SaaS / Email Nexus / Possible Outbound Email Spam

SaaS / Unusual Activity / Multiple Unusual SaaS Activities

SaaS / Email Nexus / Suspicious Internal Exchange Activity

SaaS / Compliance / Anomalous New Email Rule

List of IoCs

95.142.116[.]1 – IP Address – Suspicious SaaS Activity Source

154.12.242[.]58 – IP Address – Unusual Source

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Cloud Accounts – DEFENSE EVASION, PERSISTENCE, PRIVILEGE ESCALATION, INITIAL ACCESS – T1078

Compromise Accounts – RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT – T1586

Email Accounts – RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT – T1585

Phishing – INITIAL ACCESS – T1566

Outlook Rules – PERSISTENCE – T1137

Internal Spear phishing – LATERAL MOVEMENT - T1534

Get the latest insights on emerging cyber threats

This report explores the latest trends shaping the cybersecurity landscape and what defenders need to know in 2025.

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
Min Kim
Cyber Security Analyst

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October 24, 2025

Patch Smarter, Not Harder: Now Empowering Security Teams with Business-Aligned Threat Context Agents

Patch Smarter, Not Harder: Now Empowering Security Teams with Business-Aligned Threat Context Agents Default blog imageDefault blog image

Most risk management programs remain anchored in enumeration: scanning every asset, cataloging every CVE, and drowning in lists that rarely translate into action. Despite expensive scanners, annual pen tests, and countless spreadsheets, prioritization still falters at two critical points.

Context gaps at the device level: It’s hard to know which vulnerabilities actually matter to your business given existing privileges, what software it runs, and what controls already reduce risk.

Business translation: Even when the technical priority is clear, justifying effort and spend in financial terms—especially across many affected devices—can delay action. Especially if it means halting other areas of the business that directly generate revenue.

The result is familiar: alert fatigue, “too many highs,” and remediation that trails behind the threat landscape. Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management addresses this by pairing precise, endpoint‑level context with clear, financial insight so teams can prioritize confidently and mobilize faster.

A powerful combination: No-Telemetry Endpoint Agent + Cost-Benefit Analysis

Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management now uniquely combines technical precision with business clarity in a single workflow.  With this release, Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management delivers a more holistic approach, uniting technical context and financial insight to drive proactive risk reduction. The result is a single solution that helps security teams stay ahead of threats while reducing noise, delays, and complexity.

  • No-Telemetry Endpoint: Collects installed software data and maps it to known CVEs—without network traffic—providing device-level vulnerability context and operational relevance.
  • Cost-Benefit Analysis for Patching: Calculates ROI by comparing patching effort with potential exploit impact, factoring in headcount time, device count, patch difficulty, and automation availability.

Introducing the No-Telemetry Endpoint Agent

Darktrace’s new endpoint agent inventories installed software on devices and maps it to known CVEs without collecting network data so you can prioritize using real device context and available security controls.

By grounding vulnerability findings in the reality of each endpoint, including its software footprint and existing controls, teams can cut through generic severity scores and focus on what matters most. The agent is ideal for remote devices, BYOD-adjacent fleets, or environments standardizing on Darktrace, and is available without additional licensing cost.

Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management user interface
Figure 1: Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management user interface

Built-In Cost-Benefit Analysis for Patching

Security teams often know what needs fixing but stakeholders need to understand why now. Darktrace’s new cost-benefit calculator compares the total cost to patch against the potential cost of exploit, producing an ROI for the patch action that expresses security action in clear financial terms.

Inputs like engineer time, number of affected devices, patch difficulty, and automation availability are factored in automatically. The result is a business-aligned justification for every patching decision—helping teams secure buy-in, accelerate approvals, and move work forward with one-click ticketing, CSV export, or risk acceptance.

Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management Cost Benefit Analysis
Figure 2: Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management Cost Benefit Analysis

A Smarter, Faster Approach to Exposure Management

Together, the no-telemetry endpoint and Cost–Benefit Analysis advance the CTEM motion from theory to practice. You gain higher‑fidelity discovery and validation signals at the device level, paired with business‑ready justification that accelerates mobilization. The result is fewer distractions, clearer priorities, and faster measurable risk reduction. This is not from chasing every alert, but by focusing on what moves the needle now.

  • Smarter Prioritization: Device‑level context trims noise and spotlights the exposures that matter for your business.
  • Faster Decisions: Built‑in ROI turns technical urgency into executive clarity—speeding approvals and action.
  • Practical Execution: Privacy‑conscious endpoint collection and ticketing/export options fit neatly into existing workflows.
  • Better Outcomes: Close the loop faster—discover, prioritize, validate, and mobilize—on the same operating surface.

Committed to innovation

These updates are part of the broader Darktrace release, which also included:

1. Major innovations in cloud security with the launch of the industry’s first fully automated cloud forensics solution, reinforcing Darktrace’s leadership in AI-native security.

2. Darktrace Network Endpoint eXtended Telemetry (NEXT) is revolutionizing NDR with the industry’s first mixed-telemetry agent using Self-Learning AI.

3. Improvements to our OT product, purpose built for industrial infrastructure, Darktrace / OT now brings dedicated OT dashboard, segmentation-aware risk modeling, and expanded visibility into edge assets and automation protocols.

Join our Live Launch Event

When? 

December 9, 2025

What will be covered?

Join our live broadcast to experience how Darktrace is eliminating blind spots for detection and response across your complete enterprise with new innovations in Agentic AI across our ActiveAI Security platform. Industry leaders from IDC will join Darktrace customers to discuss challenges in cross-domain security, with a live walkthrough reshaping the future of Network Detection & Response, Endpoint Detection & Response, Email Security, and SecOps in novel threat detection and autonomous investigations.

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About the author
Kelland Goodin
Product Marketing Specialist

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October 24, 2025

Darktrace Announces Extended Visibility Between Confirmed Assets and Leaked Credentials from the Deep and Dark Web

Darktrace Announces Extended Visibility Between Confirmed Assets and Leaked Credentials from the Deep and Dark Web Default blog imageDefault blog image

Why exposure management needs to evolve beyond scans and checklists

The modern attack surface changes faster than most security programs can keep up. New assets appear, environments change, and adversaries are increasingly aided by automation and AI. Traditional approaches like periodic scans, static inventories, or annual pen tests are no longer enough. Without a formal exposure program, many businesses are flying blind, unaware of where the next threat may emerge.

This is where Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) becomes essential. Introduced by Gartner, CTEM helps organizations continuously assess, validate, and improve their exposure to real-world threats. It reframes the problem: scope your true attack surface, prioritize based on business impact and exploitability, and validate what attackers can actually do today, not once a year.

With two powerful new capabilities, Darktrace / Attack Surface Management helps organizations evolve their CTEM programs to meet the demands of today’s threat landscape. These updates make CTEM a reality, not just a strategy.

Too much data, not enough direction

Modern Attack Surface Management tools excel at discovering assets such as cloud workloads, exposed APIs, and forgotten domains. But they often fall short when it comes to prioritization. They rely on static severity scores or generic CVSS ratings, which do not reflect real-world risk or business impact.

This leaves security teams with:

  • Alert fatigue from hundreds of “critical” findings
  • Patch paralysis due to unclear prioritization
  • Blind spots around attacker intent and external targeting

CISOs need more than visibility. They need confidence in what to fix first and context to justify those decisions to stakeholders.

Evolving Attack Surface Management

Attack Surface Management (ASM) must evolve from static lists and generic severity scores to actionable intelligence that helps teams make the right decision now.

Joining the recent addition of Exploit Prediction Assessment, which debuted in late June 2025, today we’re introducing two capabilities that push ASM into that next era:

  • Exploit Prediction Assessment: Continuously validates whether top-priority exposures are actually exploitable in your environment without waiting for patch cycles or formal pen tests.  
  • Deep & Dark Web Monitoring: Extends visibility across millions of sources in the deep and dark web to detect leaked credentials linked to your confirmed domains.
  • Confidence Score: our newly developed AI classification platform will compare newly discovered assets to assets that are known to belong to your organization. The more these newly discovered assets look similar to assets that belong to your organization, the higher the score will be.

Together, these features compress the window from discovery to decision, so your team can act with precision, not panic. The result is a single solution that helps teams stay ahead of attackers without introducing new complexities.

Exploit Prediction Assessment

Traditional penetration tests are invaluable, but they’re often a snapshot of that point-in-time, are potentially disruptive, and compliance frameworks still expect them. Not to mention, when vulnerabilities are present, teams can act immediately rather than relying solely on information from CVSS scores or waiting for patch cycles.  

Unlike full pen tests which can be obtrusive and are usually done only a couple times per year, Exploit Prediction Assessment is surgical, continuous, and focused only on top issues Instead of waiting for vendor patches or the next pen‑test window. It helps confirm whether a top‑priority exposure is actually exploitable in your environment right now.  

For more information on this visit our blog: Beyond Discovery: Adding Intelligent Vulnerability Validation to Darktrace / Attack Surface Management

Deep and Dark Web Monitoring: Extending the scope

Customers have been asking for this for years, and it is finally here. Defense against the dark web. Darktrace / Attack Surface Management’s reach now spans millions of sources across the deep and dark web including forums, marketplaces, breach repositories, paste sites, and other hard‑to‑reach communities to detect leaked credentials linked to your confirmed domains.  

Monitoring is continuous, so you’re alerted as soon as evidence of compromise appears. The surface web is only a fraction of the internet, and a sizable share of risk hides beyond it. Estimates suggest the surface web represents roughly ~10% of all online content, with the rest gated or unindexed—and the TOR-accessible dark web hosts a high proportion of illicit material (a King’s College London study found ~57% of surveyed onion sites contained illicit content), underscoring why credential leakage and brand abuse often appear in places traditional monitoring doesn’t reach. Making these spaces high‑value for early warning signals when credentials or brand assets appear. Most notably, this includes your company’s reputation, assets like servers and systems, and top executives and employees at risk.

What changes for your team

Before:

  • Hundreds of findings, unclear what to start with
  • Reactive investigations triggered by incidents

After:

  • A prioritized backlog based on confidence score or exploit prediction assessment verification
  • Proactive verification of exposure with real-world risk without manual efforts

Confidence Score: Prioritize based on the use-case you care most about

What is it?

Confidence Score is a metric that expresses similarity of newly discover assets compared to the confirmed asset inventory. Several self-learning algorithms compare features of assets to be able to calculate a score.

Why it matters

Traditional Attack Surface Management tools treat all new discovery equally, making it unclear to your team how to identify the most important newly discovered assets, potentially causing you to miss a spoofing domain or shadow IT that could impact your business.

How it helps your team

We’re dividing newly discovered assets into separate insight buckets that each cover a slightly different business case.

  • Low scoring assets: to cover phishing & spoofing domains (like domain variants) that are just being registered and don't have content yet.
  • Medium scoring assets: have more similarities to your digital estate, but have better matching to HTML, brand names, keywords. Can still be phishing but probably with content.
  • High scoring assets: These look most like the rest of your confirmed digital estate, either it's phishing that needs the highest attention, or the asset belongs to your attack surface and requires asset state confirmation to enable the platform to monitor it for risks.

Smarter Exposure Management for CTEM Programs

Recent updates to Darktrace / Attack Surface Management directly advance the core phases of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM): scope, discover, prioritize, validate, and mobilize. The new Exploit Prediction Assessment helps teams validate and prioritize vulnerabilities based on real-world exploitability, while Deep & Dark Web Monitoring extends discovery into hard-to-reach areas where stolen data and credentials often surface. Together, these capabilities reduce noise, accelerate remediation, and help organizations maintain continuous visibility over their expanding attack surface.

Building on these innovations, Darktrace / Attack Surface Management empowers security teams to focus on what truly matters. By validating exploitability, it cuts through the noise of endless vulnerability lists—helping defenders concentrate on exposures that represent genuine business risk. Continuous monitoring for leaked credentials across the deep and dark web further extends visibility beyond traditional asset discovery, closing critical blind spots where attackers often operate. Crucially, these capabilities complement, not replace, existing security controls such as annual penetration tests, providing continuous, low-friction validation between formal assessments. The result is a more adaptive, resilient security posture that keeps pace with an ever-evolving threat landscape.

If you’re building or maturing a CTEM program—and want fewer open exposures, faster remediation, and better outcomes, Darktrace / Attack Surface Management’s new Exploit Prediction Assessment and Deep & Dark Web Monitoring are ready to help.

  • Want a more in-depth look at how Exploit Prediction Assessment functions? Read more here

Committed to innovation

These updates are part of the broader Darktrace release, which also included:

1. Major innovations in cloud security with the launch of the industry’s first fully automated cloud forensics solution, reinforcing Darktrace’s leadership in AI-native security.

2. Darktrace Network Endpoint eXtended Telemetry (NEXT) is revolutionizing NDR with the industry’s first mixed-telemetry agent using Self-Learning AI.

3. Improvements to our OT product, purpose built for industrial infrastructure, Darktrace / OT now brings dedicated OT dashboard, segmentation-aware risk modeling, and expanded visibility into edge assets and automation protocols.

Join our Live Launch Event

When? 

December 9, 2025

What will be covered?

Join our live broadcast to experience how Darktrace is eliminating blind spots for detection and response across your complete enterprise with new innovations in Agentic AI across our ActiveAI Security platform. Industry leaders from IDC will join Darktrace customers to discuss challenges in cross-domain security, with a live walkthrough reshaping the future of Network Detection & Response, Endpoint Detection & Response, Email Security, and SecOps in novel threat detection and autonomous investigations.

Continue reading
About the author
Kelland Goodin
Product Marketing Specialist
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