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June 6, 2022

Unraveling Disinformation Tactics in Uncertain Times

Learn how Darktrace AI is combating disinformation! Learn more about the impact of disinformation and how Darktrace tackles this pressing issue.
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
Taisiia Garkava
Security Analyst
Written by
Justin Frank
Security Analyst
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06
Jun 2022

Since the beginning of the internet, we have seen a near, if not an exponential, surge of information sharing amongst users in cyberspace. Not long after, we saw how the emergence of social media ushered an access to public online platforms where other internet users worldwide could share, discuss, promote, and consume information, whether by deliberate choice or not.

These platforms, which are now wealthy in users, enabled the effectual sharing of a wide range of information and has facilitated the emergence of online communities, forums, webpages, and blogs - where everyone could create content and share it with other users leading to near infinite number of sources.

Public and private organisations have been able to leverage these platforms to communicate directly with the public, share relevant knowledge with their audiences, and expand users’ exposure to their organisation’s online presence – often by providing the users a direct link to websites and domains containing supplementary information on their organisations. However, there are some issues that organisations and users face when using such platforms.

Misinformation vs Disinformation

The ever-growing catalogue of informational sources and contributing users has introduced an old challenge with a more complex twist: distinguishing which information is truth and which is not. Two terms are used to describe inaccurate information – misinformation and disinformation.

Misinformation is “false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent or mislead”. For example, someone can read a compelling story on social media and share it with others without checking whether this story is, in fact, true.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were rightfully concerned and anxious about their health, so they wanted to inform themselves as much as possible on the looming health risk. However, when they went looking for answers – they were overloaded with varying opinions and ‘fake facts’ that it became increasingly difficult to distinguish true facts from fiction.

Subsequently, at times a social media post - or two - that contained false information was shared by a friend, relative, or acquaintance who initially had good intentions in sharing what they had learned, but unfortunately, they were misinformed.

Disinformation instead means “deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative or facts; propaganda”, which can be interpreted as the intentional spreading of misinformation.

The main difference between misinformation and disinformation is the presence of clear intent in the latter. For example, during political conflict – or even wars – it is not uncommon for one, or both, opposing parties to broadcast news narratives to their own domestic audiences in the way that portrays them as either the righteous liberator or the unsuspecting victim.

Disinformation and Geopolitics

During turbulent times – such as (geo)political conflicts, national strife, digital revolutions, and pandemics – one can see the prevalence of massive disinformation campaigns being arranged by nation-state actors, independent threat actors and other ideologically driven actors. The likes of such campaigns are targeting businesses, governments, and individuals alike.

One of the most common channels used to spread disinformation would be social media platforms. In essence, any piece of information shared on social media can spread rapidly to all kinds of audiences across the globe. This is amplified by maliciously motivated actors’ use of “bots” to speed up the momentum of which disinformation is spread.

A bot is a “computer program that operates as an agent for a user or other program to stimulate a human activity. It is used to perform specific tasks repeatedly and autonomously. There is a plethora of these bots actively used to spread disinformation throughout the most popular social platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Impact of Disinformation on Organizations

When organisations are targeted by disinformation campaigns, malicious actors aim to leverage the discord and uncertainty on topics that are shrouded in controversy. Malicious actors like online scammers aim to exploit this induced discord by e.g., creating phishing emails that are more compelling to recipients – who are just trying to navigate between what is real and not real.

For example, a campaign stating that data held by a big telecommunication company was breached is used to craft emails in which scammers would prompt the recipients to check whether their personal data was also affected by this ‘breach’.

Regardless of whether this information is correct or not, the flux of news floating around the internet makes it increasingly difficult for a person to decide whether this information is accurate.

In parallel, the recipient may be experiencing feelings of anxiety and uncertainty regarding the breach – and the news about the breach – which often affects the recipients' decision to immediately react to new information on the topic. Since scammers use domains that are carefully crafted to seem legitimate to an untrained eye – e.g., domains containing near uncanny resemblance to the official organisation’s domain – it further increases the recipient’s susceptibility to trusting dubious sources. Thus, increasing the likelihood that recipients of phishing emails would be more compelled to e.g., click on a link attached to an email to verify whether their data was also leaked, or not.

The Future of Disinformation

Organisations who are already dealing with the social strains created by disinformation campaigns are now facing an additional risk: their audiences may be more susceptible to phishing campaigns in times of widespread uncertainty. To make a convincing phishing campaign, malign actors often use compromised domains, or attempt to mimic legitimate domains through a method called ‘typo squatting’.

Typo squatting is the act of registering domains with intentionally misspelled names of popular or official web presences and often filling these with untrustworthy content – to give their victims a false sense of legitimacy surrounding the source.

Once this false sense of legitimacy has been established between the attacker’s source and the victim’s susceptibility in trusting that source, it will be nearly entirely up to the victim to avoid being misled. Consequently, this means the attack surface of an organisation is growing as fast as disinformation and false domains can be created and shared to its audience.

Combatting Disinformation with Attack Surface Management

Organisations trying to protect their audiences from being misled by false domains will need get better visibility on domains associated with their brand. A brand-centric approach to discovering domains can shine light on:

  • The state of existing domains that are currently managed by your organisation – if they are being well maintained and properly secured.
  • The influx of ‘new’ domains that are attempting to impersonate your organisation’s brand.

Visibility on these types of domains and how your audience often interact with these domains enables an organisation to be more vigilant and responsive to the malign actors attempting to manipulate, hijack or impersonate your brand. Since an organisation’s brand pervades all sorts of publicly accessible assets – like domains – it has become of significant importance to include them in your organisation’s attack surface management regimen. Utilising a brand-centric approach to attack surface management will give your organisation a clearer view of your attack surface from a reputation risk perspective.

An attack surface management solution bolstered by such an approach will help your organisation’s security team to efficiently determine which domains – or other external facing digital assets – are posing a risk to your audience and reputation. It will help remove the repetitive work needed to identify these domains (and other assets), detect the risks associated with them, and help you manage any changes or actions required to protect both your audience and your organisation.

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
Taisiia Garkava
Security Analyst
Written by
Justin Frank
Security Analyst

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June 27, 2025

Patch and Persist: Darktrace’s Detection of Blind Eagle (APT-C-36)

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What is Blind Eagle?

Since 2018, APT-C-36, also known as Blind Eagle, has been observed performing cyber-attacks targeting various sectors across multiple countries in Latin America, with a particular focus on Colombian organizations.

Blind Eagle characteristically targets government institutions, financial organizations, and critical infrastructure [1][2].

Attacks carried out by Blind Eagle actors typically start with a phishing email and the group have been observed utilizing various Remote Access Trojans (RAT) variants, which often have in-built methods for hiding command-and-control (C2) traffic from detection [3].

What we know about Blind Eagle from a recent campaign

Since November 2024, Blind Eagle actors have been conducting an ongoing campaign targeting Colombian organizations [1].

In this campaign, threat actors have been observed using phishing emails to deliver malicious URL links to targeted recipients, similar to the way threat actors have previously been observed exploiting CVE-2024-43451, a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows that allows the disclosure of a user’s NTLMv2 password hash upon minimal interaction with a malicious file [4].

Despite Microsoft patching this vulnerability in November 2024 [1][4], Blind Eagle actors have continued to exploit the minimal interaction mechanism, though no longer with the intent of harvesting NTLMv2 password hashes. Instead, phishing emails are sent to targets containing a malicious URL which, when clicked, initiates the download of a malicious file. This file is then triggered by minimal user interaction.

Clicking on the file triggers a WebDAV request, with a connection being made over HTTP port 80 using the user agent ‘Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/10.0.19044’. WebDAV is a transmission protocol which allows files or complete directories to be made available through the internet, and to be transmitted to devices [5]. The next stage payload is then downloaded via another WebDAV request and malware is executed on the target device.

Attackers are notified when a recipient downloads the malicious files they send, providing an insight into potential targets [1].

Darktrace’s coverage of Blind Eagle

In late February 2025, Darktrace observed activity assessed with medium confidence to be  associated with Blind Eagle on the network of a customer in Colombia.

Within a period of just five hours, Darktrace / NETWORK detected a device being redirected through a rare external location, downloading multiple executable files, and ultimately exfiltrating data from the customer’s environment.

Since the customer did not have Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability enabled on their network, no actions were taken to contain the compromise, allowing it to escalate until the customer’s security team responded to the alerts provided by Darktrace.

Darktrace observed a device on the customer’s network being directed over HTTP to a rare external IP, namely 62[.]60[.]226[.]112, which had never previously been seen in this customer’s environment and was geolocated in Germany. Multiple open-source intelligence (OSINT) providers have since linked this endpoint with phishing and malware campaigns [9].

The device then proceeded to download the executable file hxxp://62[.]60[.]226[.]112/file/3601_2042.exe.

Darktrace’s detection of the affected device connecting to an unusual location based in Germany.
Figure 1: Darktrace’s detection of the affected device connecting to an unusual location based in Germany.
Darktrace’s detection of the affected device downloading an executable file from the suspicious endpoint.
Figure 2: Darktrace’s detection of the affected device downloading an executable file from the suspicious endpoint.

The device was then observed making unusual connections to the rare endpoint 21ene.ip-ddns[.]com and performing unusual external data activity.

This dynamic DNS endpoint allows a device to access an endpoint using a domain name in place of a changing IP address. Dynamic DNS services ensure the DNS record of a domain name is automatically updated when the IP address changes. As such, malicious actors can use these services and endpoints to dynamically establish connections to C2 infrastructure [6].

Further investigation into this dynamic endpoint using OSINT revealed multiple associations with previous likely Blind Eagle compromises, as well as Remcos malware, a RAT commonly deployed via phishing campaigns [7][8][10].

Darktrace’s detection of the affected device connecting to the suspicious dynamic DNS endpoint, 21ene.ip-ddns[.]com.
Figure 3: Darktrace’s detection of the affected device connecting to the suspicious dynamic DNS endpoint, 21ene.ip-ddns[.]com.

Shortly after this, Darktrace observed the user agent ‘Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/10.0.19045’, indicating usage of the aforementioned transmission protocol WebDAV. The device was subsequently observed connected to an endpoint associated with Github and downloading data, suggesting that the device was retrieving a malicious tool or payload. The device then began to communicate to the malicious endpoint diciembrenotasenclub[.]longmusic[.]com over the new TCP port 1512 [11].

Around this time, the device was also observed uploading data to the endpoints 21ene.ip-ddns[.]com and diciembrenotasenclub[.]longmusic[.]com, with transfers of 60 MiB and 5.6 MiB observed respectively.

Figure 4: UI graph showing external data transfer activity.

This chain of activity triggered an Enhanced Monitoring model alert in Darktrace / NETWORK. These high-priority model alerts are designed to trigger in response to higher fidelity indicators of compromise (IoCs), suggesting that a device is performing activity consistent with a compromise.

 Darktrace’s detection of initial attack chain activity.
Figure 5: Darktrace’s detection of initial attack chain activity.

A second Enhanced Monitoring model was also triggered by this device following the download of the aforementioned executable file (hxxp://62[.]60[.]226[.]112/file/3601_2042.exe) and the observed increase in C2 activity.

Following this activity, Darktrace continued to observe the device beaconing to the 21ene.ip-ddns[.]com endpoint.

Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst was able to correlate each of the individual detections involved in this compromise, identifying them as part of a broader incident that encompassed C2 connectivity, suspicious downloads, and external data transfers.

Cyber AI Analyst’s investigation into the activity observed on the affected device.
Figure 6: Cyber AI Analyst’s investigation into the activity observed on the affected device.
Figure 7: Cyber AI Analyst’s detection of the affected device’s broader connectivity throughout the course of the attack.

As the affected customer did not have Darktrace’s Autonomous Response configured at the time, the attack was able to progress unabated. Had Darktrace been properly enabled, it would have been able to take a number of actions to halt the escalation of the attack.

For example, the unusual beaconing connections and the download of an unexpected file from an uncommon location would have been shut down by blocking the device from making external connections to the relevant destinations.

Conclusion

The persistence of Blind Eagle and ability to adapt its tactics, even after patches were released, and the speed at which the group were able to continue using pre-established TTPs highlights that timely vulnerability management and patch application, while essential, is not a standalone defense.

Organizations must adopt security solutions that use anomaly-based detection to identify emerging and adapting threats by recognizing deviations in user or device behavior that may indicate malicious activity. Complementing this with an autonomous decision maker that can identify, connect, and contain compromise-like activity is crucial for safeguarding organizational networks against constantly evolving and sophisticated threat actors.

Credit to Charlotte Thompson (Senior Cyber Analyst), Eugene Chua (Principal Cyber Analyst) and Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

Appendices

IoCs

IoC – Type - Confidence
Microsoft-WebDAV-MiniRedir/10.0.19045 – User Agent

62[.]60[.]226[.]112 – IP – Medium Confidence

hxxp://62[.]60[.]226[.]112/file/3601_2042.exe – Payload Download – Medium Confidence

21ene.ip-ddns[.]com – Dynamic DNS Endpoint – Medium Confidence

diciembrenotasenclub[.]longmusic[.]com  - Hostname – Medium Confidence

Darktrace’s model alert coverage

Anomalous File / Suspicious HTTP Redirect
Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location
Anomalous File / Multiple EXE from Rare External Location
Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server
Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data to New Endpoint
Device / Anomalous Github Download
Anomalous Connection / Multiple Connections to New External TCP Port
Device / Initial Attack Chain Activity
Anomalous Server Activity / Rare External from Server
Compromise / Suspicious File and C2
Compromise / Fast Beaconing to DGA
Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections
Device / Large Number of Model Alert

Mitre Attack Mapping:

Tactic – Technique – Technique Name

Initial Access - T1189 – Drive-by Compromise
Initial Access - T1190 – Exploit Public-Facing Application
Initial Access ICS - T0862 – Supply Chain Compromise
Initial Access ICS - T0865 – Spearphishing Attachment
Initial Access ICS - T0817 - Drive-by Compromise
Resource Development - T1588.001 – Malware
Lateral Movement ICS - T0843 – Program Download
Command and Control - T1105 - Ingress Tool Transfer
Command and Control - T1095 – Non-Application Layer Protocol
Command and Control - T1571 – Non-Standard Port
Command and Control - T1568.002 – Domain Generation Algorithms
Command and Control ICS - T0869 – Standard Application Layer Protocol
Evasion ICS - T0849 – Masquerading
Exfiltration - T1041 – Exfiltration Over C2 Channel
Exfiltration - T1567.002 – Exfiltration to Cloud Storage

References

1)    https://research.checkpoint.com/2025/blind-eagle-and-justice-for-all/

2)    https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmgsites/in/pdf/2025/04/kpmg-ctip-blind-eagle-01-apr-2025.pdf.coredownload.inline.pdf

3)    https://www.checkpoint.com/cyber-hub/threat-prevention/what-is-remote-access-trojan/#:~:text=They%20might%20be%20attached%20to,remote%20access%20or%20system%20administration

4)    https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2024-43451

5)    https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/know-how/webdav/

6)    https://vercara.digicert.com/resources/dynamic-dns-resolution-as-an-obfuscation-technique

7)    https://threatfox.abuse.ch/ioc/1437795

8)    https://www.checkpoint.com/cyber-hub/threat-prevention/what-is-malware/remcos-malware/

9)    https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/b3189db6ddc578005cb6986f86e9680e7f71fe69f87f9498fa77ed7b1285e268

10) https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/21ene.ip-ddns.com

11) https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/diciembrenotasenclub.longmusic.com/community

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About the author
Charlotte Thompson
Cyber Analyst

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June 18, 2025

Darktrace Collaborates with Microsoft: Unifying Email Security with a Shared Vision

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In today’s threat landscape, email remains the most targeted vector for cyberattacks. Organizations require not only multi-layered defenses but also advanced, integrated systems that work collaboratively to proactively mitigate threats before they cause damage

That’s why we’re proud to announce a new integration between Darktrace / EMAIL and Microsoft Defender for Office 365, delivering a Unified Quarantine experience that empowers security teams with seamless visibility, control, and response across both platforms.

This announcement builds on a strong and growing collaboration. In 2024, Darktrace was honored as Microsoft UK Partner of the Year and recognized as a Security Trailblazer at the annual Microsoft Security 20/20 Awards, a testament to our shared commitment to innovation and customer-centric security.

A Shared Mission: Stopping Threats at Machine Speed

This integration is more than a technical milestone,as it’s a reflection of a shared mission: to protect organizations from both known and unknown threats, with efficiency, accuracy, and transparency.

  • Microsoft Defender for Office 365 delivers a comprehensive security framework that safeguards Microsoft 365 email and collaboration workloads leveraging advanced AI, global threat intelligence and information on known attack infrastructure.
  • Darktrace / EMAIL complements this with Self-Learning AI that understands the unique communication patterns within each organization, detecting subtle anomalies that evade traditional detection methods.

Together, we’re delivering multi-layered, adaptive protection that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

“Our integration with Microsoft gives security teams the tools they need to act faster and more precisely to detect and respond to threats,” said Jill Popelka, CEO of Darktrace. “Together, we’re strengthening defenses where it matters most to our customers: at the inbox.”

Unified Quarantine: One View, Total Clarity

The new Unified Quarantine experience gives customers a single pane of glass to view and manage email threatsregardless of which product took action. This means:

  • Faster investigations with consolidated visibility
  • Clear attribution of actions and outcomes across both platforms
  • Streamlined workflows for security teams managing complex environments

“This integration is a testament to the power of combining Microsoft’s global threat intelligence with Darktrace’s unique ability to understand the ‘self’ of an organization,” said Jack Stockdale, CTO of Darktrace. “Together, we’re delivering a new standard in proactive, adaptive email security.”

A New Era of Collaborative Cyber Defense

This collaboration represents a broader shift in cybersecurity: from siloed tools to integrated ecosystems. As attackers become more sophisticated, defenders must move faster, smarter, and in unison.

Through this integration, Darktrace and Microsoft establish a new standard for collaboration between native and third-party security solutions, enhancing not only threat detection but also comprehensive understanding and proactive measures against threats.

We’re excited to bring this innovation to our customers and continue building a future where AI and human expertise collaborate to secure the enterprise.

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About the author
Carlos Gray
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Email
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