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July 7, 2021

How Cyber-Attacks Take Down Critical Infrastructure

Cyber-attacks can bypass IT/OT security barriers and threaten your organization's infrastructure. Here's how you can stay protected in today's threat landscape.
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
Oakley Cox
Director of Product
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07
Jul 2021

Balancing Operational Continuity and Safety in Critical Infrastructure

The recent high-profile attacks against Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods highlight that operational technology (OT) — the devices that drive gas flows and food processing, along with essentially all other machine-driven physical processes — does not need to be directly targeted in order to be shut down as the result of a cyber-attack.

Indeed, in the Colonial Pipeline incident, the information technology (IT) systems were reportedly compromised, with operations shut down intentionally out of an abundance of caution, that is, so as to not risk the attack spreading to OT and threatening safety. This highlights that threats to both human and environmental safety, along with uncertainty as to the scope of infection, present risk factors for these sensitive industrial environments.

Continuity through availability and integrity

In most countries, critical infrastructure (CI) — ranging from power grids and pipelines to transportation and health care — must maintain continuous activity. The recent ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline demonstrates why this is the case, where gas shortages due to the compromise led to dangerous panic buys and long lines at the pumps.

Ensuring continuous operation of critical infrastructure requires safeguarding the availability and integrity of machinery. This means that organizations overseeing critical infrastructure must foresee any possible risks and implement systems, procedures, and technologies that mitigate or remove these risks so as to keep their operations running.

Operational demand versus safety

Alongside this requirement for operational continuity, and often in opposition to it, is the requirement for operational safety. These requirements can be in opposition because operational continuity demands that devices remain up and running at all costs, and operational safety demands that humans and the environment be protected at all costs.

Safety measures in critical infrastructure have improved and become increasingly prioritized over the last 50 years following numerous high-profile incidents, such as the Bhopal chemical disaster, the Texas City refinery explosion, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Appropriate safety precautions could have likely prevented these incidents, but at the expense of operational continuity.

Consequently, administrators of critical infrastructure have to balance the very real threat that an incident may pose to both human life and the environment with the demand to remain operational at all times. More often than not, the final decision regarding what constitutes an acceptable risk is determined by budgets and cost-benefit analyses.

Cyber-attack: A rising risk profile for critical infrastructure

In 2010, the discovery of the Stuxnet malware — which resulted in a nuclear facility in Iran having its centrifuges ruined via compromised programmable logic controllers (PLCs) — demonstrated that critical infrastructure could be targeted by a cyber-attack.

At the time of Stuxnet, critical infrastructure industries used computers designed to ensure operational continuity with little regard for cyber security, as at the time the risk of a cyber-attack seemed either non-existent or vanishingly low. Since then, a number of attacks targeting industrial environments that have emerged on the global threat landscape.

Figure 1: An overview of distinctive methods used in attacks against industrial environments

Classic strains of industrial malware, such as Stuxnet, Triton, and Industroyer, have historically been installed via removable media, such as USB. This is because OT networks are traditionally segregated from the Internet in what is known as an ‘air gap.’ And this remains a prevalent vector of attack, with a study recently finding that cyber-threats installed via USB and other external media doubled in 2021, with 79% of these holding the potential to disrupt OT.

In many ways, operational demands in the subsequent 10 years have made critical infrastructure even more vulnerable. These include the convergence of information technology and operational technology (IT/OT convergence), the adoption of devices in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and the deprecation of manual back-up systems. This means that OT can be disrupted by cyber-attacks that first target IT systems, rather than having to be installed manually via external media.

At the same time, recent government initiatives — such as the Department of Energy’s 100-day ‘cyber sprint’ to protect electricity operations and President Biden’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity — and regulatory frameworks and directives such as the EU’s NIS directive have either encouraged or mandated that critical infrastructure industries start addressing this new risk.

With the severe and persistent threat that cyber-attacks pose to critical infrastructure, including maritime cybersecurity, and the increasing calls to address the issue, the question remains as to how to best achieve robust cyber defense.

Assessing the risk

To claim administrators of critical infrastructure are ignorant or oblivious to the threat posed by cyber-attacks would be unfair. Many organizations have implemented changes to mitigate or remove the risk either as a result of regulation or their own forward thinking.

However, these projects can take years, even decades. High costs and ever-changing operational demand also mean that these projects may never fully remove the risk.

As a result, many operators may understand the threat of a cyber-attack but not be in a position to do anything about it in the short or medium term. Instead, procedures have to be put in place to minimize risk even if this threatens operational continuity.

For example, a risk assessment may decide it is best to shut down all OT operations in the event of a cyber-attack in order to avoid a major accident. This abundance of caution is forced upon operators, who do not have the ability to immediately confirm the boundaries of a compromise. The prevalence of cyber insurance provides this option with further appeal. Any losses incurred by stopping operations can theoretically be recouped and the risk is therefore transferred.

While the full details of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident are still to be determined, the sequence of events outlined below provides a plausible explanation for how a cyber-attack could take down critical infrastructure, even when that cyber-attack does not reach or even target OT systems. Indeed, the CEO of Colonial Pipeline, in a testimony to congress, confirmed “the imperative to isolate and contain the attack to help ensure the malware did not spread to the operational technology network, which controls our pipeline operations, if it had not already.”

Figure 2: A sequence of events which may lead to critical infrastructure being shut down by a cyber-attack, even when that cyber-attack doesn’t directly impact OT networks

The limits of securing IT or OT in isolation

The emergence of OT cyber security solutions in the last five years demonstrates that critical infrastructure industries are trying to find a way to address the risks posed by cyber-attacks. But these solutions have limited scope, as they assume IT and OT are separated and use legacy security techniques such as malware signatures and patch management.

The 2021 SANS ICS Security Summit highlighted how the OT security community suffers from a lack of visibility in knowing and understanding their networks. For many organizations, simply determining whether an unusual incident is an attack or the result of a software error is a challenge.

Given that most OT cyber-attacks actually start in IT networks before pivoting into OT, investing in an IT security solution rather than an OT-specific solution may at first seem like a better business decision. But IT solutions fall short if an attacker successfully pivots into the OT network, or if the attacker is a rogue insider who already has direct access to the OT network. A siloed approach to securing either IT or OT in isolation will thus fall short of the full scope needed to safeguard industrial systems.

It is clear that a mature security posture for critical infrastructure would include security solutions for both IT and OT. Even then, using separate solutions to protect the IT and OT networks is limited, as it presents challenges when defending network boundaries and detecting incidents when an attacker pivots from IT to OT. Under time pressure, a security team does not want changes in visibility, detection, language or interface while trying to determine whether a threat crossed the ‘boundary’ between IT and OT.

Separate solutions can also make detecting an attacker abusing traditional IT attack TTPs within an OT network much harder if the security team is relying on a purely OT solution to defend the OT environment. Examples of this include the abuse of IT remote management tools to affect industrial environments, such as in the suspected cyber-attack at the Florida water facility earlier this year. Cybersecurity for utilities is becoming increasingly important as these sectors face growing cyber threats that can disrupt essential services.

Using AI to minimize cyber risk and maximize cyber safety

In contrast, Darktrace AI is able to defend an entire cyber ecosystem estate, building a ‘pattern of life’ across IT and OT, as well as the points at which they converge. Consequently, cyber security teams can use a single pane of glass to detect and respond to cyber-attacks as they emerge and develop, regardless of where they are in the environment.

Use cases for Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI include containing pre-existing threats to maintain continuous operations. This was seen when Darktrace’s AI detected pre-existing infections and acted autonomously to contain the threat, allowing the operator to leave infected IIoT devices active while waiting for replacements. Darktrace can also thwart ransomware in IT before it can spread into OT, as when Darktrace detected a ransomware attack targeting a supplier for critical infrastructure in North America at its earliest stages.

Darktrace’s unified protection, including visibility and early detection of zero-days, empowers security teams to overcome uncertainty and make a confident decision not to shut down operations. Darktrace has already demonstrated this ability in the wild, and allows organizations to understand normal machine and human behavior in order to enforce this behavior, even in the face of an emerging cyber-attack.

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
Oakley Cox
Director of Product

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September 9, 2025

The benefits of bringing together network and email security

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In many organizations, network and email security operate in isolation. Each solution is tasked with defending its respective environment, even though both are facing the same advanced, multi-domain threats.  

This siloed approach overlooks a critical reality: email remains the most common vector for initiating cyber-attacks, while the network is the primary stage on which those attacks progress. Without direct integration between these two domains, organizations risk leaving blind spots that adversaries can exploit.  

A modern security strategy needs to unify email and network defenses, not just in name, but in how they share intelligence, conduct investigations, and coordinate response actions. Let’s take a look at how this joined-up approach delivers measurable technical, operational, and commercial benefits.

Technical advantages

Pre-alert intelligence: Gathering data before the threat strikes

Most security tools start working when something goes wrong – an unusual login, a flagged attachment, a confirmed compromise. But by then, attackers may already be a step ahead.

By unifying network and email security under a single AI platform (like the Darktrace Active AI Security Platform), you can analyze patterns across both environments in real time, even when there are no alerts. This ongoing monitoring builds a behavioral understanding of every user, device, and domain in your ecosystem.

That means when an email arrives from a suspicious domain, the system already knows whether that domain has appeared on your network before – and whether its behavior has been unusual. Likewise, when new network activity involves a domain first spotted in an email, it’s instantly placed in the right context.

This intelligence isn’t built on signatures or after-the-fact compromise indicators – it’s built on live behavioral baselines, giving your defenses the ability to flag threats before damage is done.

Alert-related intelligence: Connecting the dots in real time

Once an alert does fire, speed and context matter. The Darktrace Cyber AI Analyst can automatically investigate across both environments, piecing together network and email evidence into a single, cohesive incident.

Instead of leaving analysts to sift through fragmented logs, the AI links events like a phishing email to suspicious lateral movement on the recipient’s device, keeping the full attack chain intact. Investigations that might take hours – or even days – can be completed in minutes, with far fewer false positives to wade through.

This is more than a time-saver. It ensures defenders maintain visibility after the first sign of compromise, following the attacker as they pivot into network infrastructure, cloud services, or other targets. That cross-environment continuity is impossible to achieve with disconnected point solutions or siloed workflows.

Operational advantages

Streamlining SecOps across teams

In many organizations, email security is managed by IT, while network defense belongs to the SOC. The result? Critical information is scattered between tools and teams, creating blind spots just when you need clarity.

When email and network data flow into a single platform, everyone is working from the same source of truth. SOC analysts gain immediate visibility into email threats without opening another console or sending a request to another department. The IT team benefits from the SOC’s deeper investigative context.

The outcome is more than convenience: it’s faster, more informed decision-making across the board.

Reducing time-to-meaning and enabling faster response

A unified platform removes the need to manually correlate alerts between tools, reducing time-to-meaning for every incident. Built-in AI correlation instantly ties together related events, guiding analysts toward coordinated responses with higher confidence.

Instead of relying on manual SIEM rules or pre-built SOAR playbooks, the platform connects the dots in real time, and can even trigger autonomous response actions across both environments simultaneously. This ensures attacks are stopped before they can escalate, regardless of where they begin.

Commercial advantages

While purchasing “best-of-breed" for all your different tools might sound appealing, it often leads to a patchwork of solutions with overlapping costs and gaps in coverage. However good a “best-in-breed" email security solution might be in the email realm, it won't be truly effective without visibility across domains and an AI analyst piecing intelligence together. That’s why we think “best-in-suite" is the only “best-in-breed" approach that works – choosing a high-quality platform ensures that every new capability strengthens the whole system.  

On top of that, security budgets are under constant pressure. Managing separate vendors for email and network defense means juggling multiple contracts, negotiating different SLAs, and stitching together different support models.

With a single provider for both, procurement and vendor management become far simpler. You deal with one account team, one support channel, and one unified strategy for both environments. If you choose to layer on managed services, you get consistent expertise across your whole security footprint.

Even more importantly, an integrated AI platform sets the stage for growth. Once email and network are under the same roof, adding coverage for other attack surfaces – like cloud or identity – is straightforward. You’re building on the same architecture, not bolting on new point solutions that create more complexity.

Check out the white paper, The Modern Security Stack: Why Your NDR and Email Security Solutions Need to Work Together, to explore these benefits in more depth, with real-world examples and practical steps for unifying your defenses.

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About the author
Mikey Anderson
Product Marketing Manager, Network Detection & Response

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September 9, 2025

Unpacking the Salesloft Incident: Insights from Darktrace Observations

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Introduction

On August 26, 2025, Google Threat intelligence Group released a report detailing a widespread data theft campaign targeting the sales automation platform Salesloft, via compromised OAuth tokens used by the third-party Drift AI chat agent [1][2].  The attack has been attributed to the threat actor UNC6395 by Google Threat Intelligence and Mandiant [1].

The attack is believed to have begun in early August 2025 and continued through until mid-August 2025 [1], with the threat actor exporting significant volumes of data from multiple Salesforce instances [1]. Then sifting through this data for anything that could be used to compromise the victim’s environments such as access keys, tokens or passwords. This had led to Google Threat Intelligence Group assessing that the primary intent of the threat actor is credential harvesting, and later reporting that it was aware of in excess of 700 potentially impacted organizations [3].

Salesloft previously stated that, based on currently available data, customers that do not integrate with Salesforce are unaffected by this campaign [2]. However, on August 28, Google Threat Intelligence Group announced that “Based on new information identified by GTIG, the scope of this compromise is not exclusive to the Salesforce integration with Salesloft Drift and impacts other integrations” [2]. Google Threat Intelligence has since advised that any and all authentication tokens stored in or connected to the Drift platform be treated as potentially compromised [1].

This campaign demonstrates how attackers are increasingly exploiting trusted Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) integrations as a pathway into enterprise environment.

By abusing these integrations, threat actors were able to exfiltrate sensitive business data at scale, bypassing traditional security controls. Rather than relying on malware or obvious intrusion techniques, the adversaries leveraged legitimate credentials and API traffic that resembled legitimate Salesforce activity to achieve their goals. This type of activity is far harder to detect with conventional security tools, since it blends in with the daily noise of business operations.

The incident underscores the escalating significance of autonomous coverage within SaaS and third-party ecosystems. As businesses increasingly depend on interconnected platforms, visibility gaps become evident that cannot be managed by conventional perimeter and endpoint defenses.

By developing a behavioral comprehension of each organization's distinct use of cloud services, anomalies can be detected, such as logins from unexpected locations, unusually high volumes of API requests, or unusual document activity. These indications serve as an early alert system, even when intruders use legitimate tokens or accounts, enabling security teams to step in before extensive data exfiltration takes place

What happened?

The campaign is believed to have started on August 8, 2025, with malicious activity continuing until at least August 18. The threat actor, tracked as UNC6395, gained access via compromised OAuth tokens associated with Salesloft Drift integrations into Salesforce [1]. Once tokens were obtained, the attackers were able to issue large volumes of Salesforce API requests, exfiltrating sensitive customer and business data.

Initial Intrusion

The attackers first established access by abusing OAuth and refresh tokens from the Drift integration. These tokens gave them persistent access into Salesforce environments without requiring further authentication [1]. To expand their foothold, the threat actor also made use of TruffleHog [4], an open-source secrets scanner, to hunt for additional exposed credentials. Logs later revealed anomalous IAM updates, including unusual UpdateAccessKey activity, which suggested attempts to ensure long-term persistence and control within compromised accounts.

Internal Reconnaissance & Data Exfiltration

Once inside, the adversaries began exploring the Salesforce environments. They ran queries designed to pull sensitive data fields, focusing on objects such as Cases, Accounts, Users, and Opportunities [1]. At the same time, the attackers sifted through this information to identify secrets that could enable access to other systems, including AWS keys and Snowflake credentials [4]. This phase demonstrated the opportunistic nature of the campaign, with the actors looking for any data that could be repurposed for further compromise.

Lateral Movement

Salesloft and Mandiant investigations revealed that the threat actor also created at least one new user account in early September. Although follow-up activity linked to this account was limited, the creation itself suggested a persistence mechanism designed to survive remediation efforts. By maintaining a separate identity, the attackers ensured they could regain access even if their stolen OAuth tokens were revoked.

Accomplishing the mission

The data taken from Salesforce environments included valuable business records, which attackers used to harvest credentials and identify high-value targets. According to Mandiant, once the data was exfiltrated, the actors actively sifted through it to locate sensitive information that could be leveraged in future intrusions [1]. In response, Salesforce and Salesloft revoked OAuth tokens associated with Drift integrations on August 20 [1], a containment measure aimed at cutting off the attackers’ primary access channel and preventing further abuse.

How did the attack bypass the rest of the security stack?

The campaign effectively bypassed security measures by using legitimate credentials and OAuth tokens through the Salesloft Drift integration. This rendered traditional security defenses like endpoint protection and firewalls ineffective, as the activity appeared non-malicious [1]. The attackers blended into normal operations by using common user agents and making queries through the Salesforce API, which made their activity resemble legitimate integrations and scripts. This allowed them to operate undetected in the SaaS environment, exploiting the trust in third-party connections and highlighting the limitations of traditional detection controls.

Darktrace Coverage

Anomalous activities have been identified across multiple Darktrace deployments that appear associated with this campaign. This included two cases on customers based within the United States who had a Salesforce integration, where the pattern of activities was notably similar.

On August 17, Darktrace observed an account belonging to one of these customers logging in from the rare endpoint 208.68.36[.]90, while the user was seen active from another location. This IP is a known indicator of compromise (IoC) reported by open-source intelligence (OSINT) for the campaign [2].

Cyber AI Analyst Incident summarizing the suspicious login seen for the account.
Figure 1: Cyber AI Analyst Incident summarizing the suspicious login seen for the account.

The login event was associated with the application Drift, further connecting the events to this campaign.

Advanced Search logs showing the Application used to login.
Figure 2: Advanced Search logs showing the Application used to login.

Following the login, the actor initiated a high volume of Salesforce API requests using methods such as GET, POST, and DELETE. The GET requests targeted endpoints like /services/data/v57.0/query and /services/data/v57.0/sobjects/Case/describe, where the former is used to retrieve records based on a specific criterion, while the latter provides metadata for the Case object, including field names and data types [5,6].

Subsequently, a POST request to /services/data/v57.0/jobs/query was observed, likely to initiate a Bulk API query job for extracting large volumes of data from the Ingest Job endpoint [7,8].

Finally, a DELETE request to remove an ingestion job batch, possibly an attempt to obscure traces of prior data access or manipulation.

A case on another US-based customer took place a day later, on August 18. This again began with an account logging in from the rare IP 208.68.36[.]90 involving the application Drift. This was followed by Salesforce GET requests targeting the same endpoints as seen in the previous case, and then a POST to the Ingest Job endpoint and finally a DELETE request, all occurring within one minute of the initial suspicious login.

The chain of anomalous behaviors, including a suspicious login and delete request, resulted in Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability suggesting a ‘Disable user’ action. However, the customer’s deployment configuration required manual confirmation for the action to take effect.

An example model alert for the user, triggered due to an anomalous API DELETE request.
Figure 3: An example model alert for the user, triggered due to an anomalous API DELETE request.
Figure 4: Model Alert Event Log showing various model alerts for the account that ultimately led to an Autonomous Response model being triggered.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this incident underscores the escalating risks of SaaS supply chain attacks, where third-party integrations can become avenues for attacks. It demonstrates how adversaries can exploit legitimate OAuth tokens and API traffic to circumvent traditional defenses. This emphasizes the necessity for constant monitoring of SaaS and cloud activity, beyond just endpoints and networks, while also reinforcing the significance of applying least privilege access and routinely reviewing OAuth permissions in cloud environments. Furthermore, it provides a wider perspective into the evolution of the threat landscape, shifting towards credential and token abuse as opposed to malware-driven compromise.

Credit to Emma Foulger (Global Threat Research Operations Lead), Calum Hall (Technical Content Researcher), Signe Zaharka (Principal Cyber Analyst), Min Kim (Senior Cyber Analyst), Nahisha Nobregas (Senior Cyber Analyst), Priya Thapa (Cyber Analyst)

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections

·      SaaS / Access / Unusual External Source for SaaS Credential Use

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

·      SaaS / Compliance / Anomalous Salesforce API Event

·      SaaS / Unusual Activity / Multiple Unusual SaaS Activities

·      Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Unusual Activity Block

·      Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Suspicious Source Activity Block

Customers should consider integrating Salesforce with Darktrace where possible. These integrations allow better visibility and correlation to spot unusual behavior and possible threats.

IoC List

(IoC – Type)

·      208.68.36[.]90 – IP Address

References

1.     https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/data-theft-salesforce-instances-via-salesloft-drift

2.     https://trust.salesloft.com/?uid=Drift+Security+Update%3ASalesforce+Integrations+%283%3A30PM+ET%29

3.     https://thehackernews.com/2025/08/salesloft-oauth-breach-via-drift-ai.html

4.     https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/threat-brief-compromised-salesforce-instances/

5.     https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/resources_query.htm

6.     https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_rest.meta/api_rest/resources_sobject_describe.htm

7.     https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_asynch.meta/api_asynch/get_job_info.htm

8.     https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_asynch.meta/api_asynch/query_create_job.htm

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About the author
Emma Foulger
Global Threat Research Operations Lead
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