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April 2, 2023

Enhancing Security Teams with AI-Powered Email Solutions

Discover email-based attack challenges & how AI security solutions can tackle these attacks with autonomous action, optimized workflows, and user visibility.
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
Dan Fein
VP, Product
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02
Apr 2023

The modern security team faces challenges on all fronts – it is too often overstretched dealing with an increased attack surface, enabling workforces for secure remote work, and managing multiple security tools to protect that workforce. Added to that, the surge in more sophisticated phishing campaigns – now supported by AI tools – means that it’s harder than ever to pre-empt attacks. 

The needs of the security team should be a key consideration when deploying an email security solution, as it’s them who will be accountable for the success and maintenance of the product. Minimizing time spent inside the user interface – through trusted detection and response technology combined with intuitive reporting and optimized workflows – should be front of mind for vendors in order to assure teams of their value.

Taking security teams off the frontline 

No team should be spending all of their time maintaining email security policies, releasing emails that shouldn’t have been held, or holding back emails that should have been – all the things that traditional email security solutions have almost forced them to become accustomed to. A day in the life of an admin shouldn’t include tens – and certainly not hundreds – of minutes spent in their email security dashboard. 

At the moment, teams are logging in far too often, and when they do, they’re forced to make individual decisions about safe listing and blocking domains, or releasing emails. These can lead to the creation of blanket rules that open up future windows for attackers – unintended consequences that ultimately create more work in the future. This type of hand-to-hand combat puts security teams on the frontline, when their time could be much better spent doing the high-level strategic work humans are best at.  

Understanding You: A Different Approach to Email Security

In today’s discussions about email security, there is a consensus that relying on a gateway is no longer feasible. The new era is one of ICES (Integrated cloud email security) solutions and other tools leveraging artificial intelligence and APIs. But there's no point adopting new technology with an old philosophy – and most of these solutions use AI to automate the same old approach: looking at past attacks to try and stop the next. 

This is where Darktrace/Email takes a fundamentally different and unique approach. It’s not just about using AI; it’s about using it in the right capacity. Our AI understands you – learning where users log in from, who they email, their behavior throughout the day – to tailor the detection and response process according to their individual profile. There’s no point withholding an email if only a tiny element of it poses a risk – Darktrace/Email takes the least aggressive action required to neutralize a threat. Instead of a blanket allow-deny criteria, it can rewrite links or withhold attachments based on its knowledge of the user’s normal inbox activity. Stopping malicious emails while allowing legitimate emails through – with risky elements neutralized – lifts security teams out of the fire-fighting activities described earlier and frees up their time for more strategic and valuable decision-making.

This is going to get me to reduce my current email security stack… this is going to take it to that level that I need it to”

- Early Look Customer, Darktrace/Email 

Account Takeover 

Embedded account takeover protection is an essential component of modern email security. Security teams need visibility not just over email breaches but of what happens once an attacker has control of an inbox, particularly in the most damaging use cases like Business Email Compromise (BEC) and ransomware. This entails understanding a user’s behavior in their inbox, outbound emails and beyond into their wider account activity. Darktrace captures a user’s activity across email and their Microsoft or Google account in a single pane of glass – detecting and countering all of the markers that could signify a compromised account.  

Insights from other cloud applications and network devices gleaned from Darktrace's wider visibility of the business can bring a 360° understanding of the user, further enhancing detection of account takeover and other harmful activity.

Figure 1: A 360° understanding of a user reveals their digital touchpoints beyond Microsoft

What ‘user-friendly’ actually looks like 

The best user interface is one that you never have to log into. In an ideal world, teams are able to visit their tools less frequently because intelligent AI is automating work previously done by humans. This is made possible by Darktrace’s precision detection and response technology, which takes appropriate action on emails and accounts to neutralize threats without disrupting day-to-day business operations. 

The second-best user interface is one where you can quickly log in and get key insights fast, whether that’s regarding an action taken or the current activity of a user – and then get out. Darktrace/Email enables teams to get key information quickly, at both a high and granular level.  The dashboard offers immediate insights into users and emails, with a real-time snapshot of active user identities, targeted user and actioned emails, segmented by type of attack. 

At every touchpoint, Darktrace reduces friction with optimized workflows. From being able to quickly identify VIPs to safely previewing links and attachments, security teams can get the information they need without needing to switch between windows or navigate inaccessible interfaces. Explainable AI gives users natural-language summaries of individual emails or the overall health of an email environment, and simplified action flows allow security teams to personalize security for different employees – for example, sending VIPs a unique notification, or taking extra precautions around employees who work in accounting. Taken together, this meaning that admins can spend even less time managing policies. 

Figure 2: Darktrace/Email dashboard displaying key information about the email environment in a single pane of glass

The ideal interface is also the one that’s the most accessible to you. The mobile app guarantees convenience for security teams, making available all the main functions of the interface for on-the-go analysis at any time or place. Teams can travel or leave the office while retaining the peace of mind that if a critical incident was to occur, they would be able to get instant visibility on the data and take action without needing to get back to their desks.  

Figure 3: Security admins are able to preview, analyze, and act on emails directly from the Darktrace Mobile App

With every passing day, the security team can rest easier. Every activity is taken into account to help the AI tune and adapt over time to become even better at detecting and responding to threats.   

Having email on the app is going to be game changing” 

- Early Look Customer, Darktrace/Email 

Getting the full picture

Most often, email is the entry point from which a threat actor moves stealthily throughout an organization collecting information and assets. Most solutions look at email in isolation, without prioritizing or connecting disparate events into a wider pattern. 

In contrast, Darktrace/Email integrates seamlessly with Darktrace's Cyber AI Analyst, a technology that conducts autonomous enterprise-wide investigations around every alert produced by the wider Darktrace platform. Through this integration, malicious email activity is analyzed and displayed in the context of the full security incident to which it belongs. As a result, security teams can see why and how a wider problem might have originated in email and spread to other apps, endpoints, or the wider corporate network.

Empowering employees to take an active role in security

The role of the security team can be made more difficult if employees take a lax or disengaged approach to security – or if a user is given too much control, and has the ability to make potentially dangerous decisions. Training employees on security procedures is another to-do which can easily fall to the bottom of the agenda during busy periods, especially as point-in-time phishing simulations have proven to be not particularly effective. 

To this end, Darktrace/Email uses Explainable AI to say in natural language what it thought about an email, and delivers its findings not just to the security team, but optionally to the wider workforce as well. Delivered in the form of contextual banners in emails, periodic digests, or directly in Outlook, these insights transform security education from a quarterly or yearly exercise into real-time security awareness. Our next blog will dive deeper into how employee engagement can support the security team’s efforts and harden defenses throughout the organization. 

Because Darktrace is built on a fundamentally different approach, it not only stops novel and targeted sophisticated attacks but allows legitimate emails to flow through. This is what makes it a truly set-and-forget technology, with the AI taking on much of the heavy lifting previously undertaken by security teams. 

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
Dan Fein
VP, Product

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Identity

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July 3, 2025

Top Eight Threats to SaaS Security and How to Combat Them

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The latest on the identity security landscape

Following the mass adoption of remote and hybrid working patterns, more critical data than ever resides in cloud applications – from Salesforce and Google Workspace, to Box, Dropbox, and Microsoft 365.

On average, a single organization uses 130 different Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, and 45% of organizations reported experiencing a cybersecurity incident through a SaaS application in the last year.

As SaaS applications look set to remain an integral part of the digital estate, organizations are being forced to rethink how they protect their users and data in this area.

What is SaaS security?

SaaS security is the protection of cloud applications. It includes securing the apps themselves as well as the user identities that engage with them.

Below are the top eight threats that target SaaS security and user identities.

1.  Account Takeover (ATO)

Attackers gain unauthorized access to a user’s SaaS or cloud account by stealing credentials through phishing, brute-force attacks, or credential stuffing. Once inside, they can exfiltrate data, send malicious emails, or escalate privileges to maintain persistent access.

2. Privilege escalation

Cybercriminals exploit misconfigurations, weak access controls, or vulnerabilities to increase their access privileges within a SaaS or cloud environment. Gaining admin or superuser rights allows attackers to disable security settings, create new accounts, or move laterally across the organization.

3. Lateral movement

Once inside a network or SaaS platform, attackers move between accounts, applications, and cloud workloads to expand their foot- hold. Compromised OAuth tokens, session hijacking, or exploited API connections can enable adversaries to escalate access and exfiltrate sensitive data.

4. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) bypass and session hijacking

Threat actors bypass MFA through SIM swapping, push bombing, or exploiting session cookies. By stealing an active authentication session, they can access SaaS environments without needing the original credentials or MFA approval.

5. OAuth token abuse

Attackers exploit OAuth authentication mechanisms by stealing or abusing tokens that grant persistent access to SaaS applications. This allows them to maintain access even if the original user resets their password, making detection and mitigation difficult.

6. Insider threats

Malicious or negligent insiders misuse their legitimate access to SaaS applications or cloud platforms to leak data, alter configurations, or assist external attackers. Over-provisioned accounts and poor access control policies make it easier for insiders to exploit SaaS environments.

7. Application Programming Interface (API)-based attacks

SaaS applications rely on APIs for integration and automation, but attackers exploit insecure endpoints, excessive permissions, and unmonitored API calls to gain unauthorized access. API abuse can lead to data exfiltration, privilege escalation, and service disruption.

8. Business Email Compromise (BEC) via SaaS

Adversaries compromise SaaS-based email platforms (e.g., Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace) to send phishing emails, conduct invoice fraud, or steal sensitive communications. BEC attacks often involve financial fraud or data theft by impersonating executives or suppliers.

BEC heavily uses social engineering techniques, tailoring messages for a specific audience and context. And with the growing use of generative AI by threat actors, BEC is becoming even harder to detect. By adding ingenuity and machine speed, generative AI tools give threat actors the ability to create more personalized, targeted, and convincing attacks at scale.

Protecting against these SaaS threats

Traditionally, security leaders relied on tools that were focused on the attack, reliant on threat intelligence, and confined to a single area of the digital estate.

However, these tools have limitations, and often prove inadequate for contemporary situations, environments, and threats. For example, they may lack advanced threat detection, have limited visibility and scope, and struggle to integrate with other tools and infrastructure, especially cloud platforms.

AI-powered SaaS security stays ahead of the threat landscape

New, more effective approaches involve AI-powered defense solutions that understand the digital business, reveal subtle deviations that indicate cyber-threats, and action autonomous, targeted responses.

[related-resource]

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About the author
Carlos Gray
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Email

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Proactive Security

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July 2, 2025

Pre-CVE Threat Detection: 10 Examples Identifying Malicious Activity Prior to Public Disclosure of a Vulnerability

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Vulnerabilities are weaknesses in a system that can be exploited by malicious actors to gain unauthorized access or to disrupt normal operations. Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (or CVEs) are a list of publicly disclosed cybersecurity vulnerabilities that can be tracked and mitigated by the security community.

When a vulnerability is discovered, the standard practice is to report it to the vendor or the responsible organization, allowing them to develop and distribute a patch or fix before the details are made public. This is known as responsible disclosure.

With a record-breaking 40,000 CVEs reported for 2024 and a predicted higher number for 2025 by the Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) [1], anomaly-detection is essential for identifying these potential risks. The gap between exploitation of a zero-day and disclosure of the vulnerability can sometimes be considerable, and retroactively attempting to identify successful exploitation on your network can be challenging, particularly if taking a signature-based approach.

Detecting threats without relying on CVE disclosure

Abnormal behaviors in networks or systems, such as unusual login patterns or data transfers, can indicate attempted cyber-attacks, insider threats, or compromised systems. Since Darktrace does not rely on rules or signatures, it can detect malicious activity that is anomalous even without full context of the specific device or asset in question.

For example, during the Fortinet exploitation late last year, the Darktrace Threat Research team were investigating a different Fortinet vulnerability, namely CVE 2024-23113, for exploitation when Mandiant released a security advisory around CVE 2024-47575, which aligned closely with Darktrace’s findings.

Retrospective analysis like this is used by Darktrace’s threat researchers to better understand detections across the threat landscape and to add additional context.

Below are ten examples from the past year where Darktrace detected malicious activity days or even weeks before a vulnerability was publicly disclosed.

ten examples from the past year where Darktrace detected malicious activity days or even weeks before a vulnerability was publicly disclosed.

Trends in pre-cve exploitation

Often, the disclosure of an exploited vulnerability can be off the back of an incident response investigation related to a compromise by an advanced threat actor using a zero-day. Once the vulnerability is registered and publicly disclosed as having been exploited, it can kick off a race between the attacker and defender: attack vs patch.

Nation-state actors, highly skilled with significant resources, are known to use a range of capabilities to achieve their target, including zero-day use. Often, pre-CVE activity is “low and slow”, last for months with high operational security. After CVE disclosure, the barriers to entry lower, allowing less skilled and less resourced attackers, like some ransomware gangs, to exploit the vulnerability and cause harm. This is why two distinct types of activity are often seen: pre and post disclosure of an exploited vulnerability.

Darktrace saw this consistent story line play out during several of the Fortinet and PAN OS threat actor campaigns highlighted above last year, where nation-state actors were seen exploiting vulnerabilities first, followed by ransomware gangs impacting organizations [2].

The same applies with the recent SAP Netweaver exploitations being tied to a China based threat actor earlier this spring with subsequent ransomware incidents being observed [3].

Autonomous Response

Anomaly-based detection offers the benefit of identifying malicious activity even before a CVE is disclosed; however, security teams still need to quickly contain and isolate the activity.

For example, during the Ivanti chaining exploitation in the early part of 2025, a customer had Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability enabled on their network. As a result, Darktrace was able to contain the compromise and shut down any ongoing suspicious connectivity by blocking internal connections and enforcing a “pattern of life” on the affected device.

This pre-CVE detection and response by Darktrace occurred 11 days before any public disclosure, demonstrating the value of an anomaly-based approach.

In some cases, customers have even reported that Darktrace stopped malicious exploitation of devices several days before a public disclosure of a vulnerability.

For example, During the ConnectWise exploitation, a customer informed the team that Darktrace had detected malicious software being installed via remote access. Upon further investigation, four servers were found to be impacted, while Autonomous Response had blocked outbound connections and enforced patterns of life on impacted devices.

Conclusion

By continuously analyzing behavioral patterns, systems can spot unusual activities and patterns from users, systems, and networks to detect anomalies that could signify a security breach.

Through ongoing monitoring and learning from these behaviors, anomaly-based security systems can detect threats that traditional signature-based solutions might miss, while also providing detailed insights into threat tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This type of behavioral intelligence supports pre-CVE detection, allows for a more adaptive security posture, and enables systems to evolve with the ever-changing threat landscape.

Credit to Nathaniel Jones (VP, Security & AI Strategy, Field CISO), Emma Fougler (Global Threat Research Operations Lead), Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

References and further reading:

  1. https://www.first.org/blog/20250607-Vulnerability-Forecast-for-2025
  2. https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/fortimanager-zero-day-exploitation-cve-2024-47575
  3. https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/china-linked-hackers-exploit-sap-and.html

Related Darktrace blogs:

*Self-reported by customer, confirmed afterwards.

**Updated January 2024 blog now reflects current findings

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About the author
Nathaniel Jones
VP, Security & AI Strategy, Field CISO
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