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July 9, 2019

Insights on Shamoon 3 Data-Wiping Malware

Gain insights into Shamoon 3 and learn how to protect your organization from its destructive capabilities.
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
Max Heinemeyer
Global Field CISO
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09
Jul 2019

Responsible for some of the “most damaging cyber-attacks in history” since 2012, the Shamoon malware wipes compromised hard drives and overwrites key system processes, intending to render infected machines unusable. During a trial period in the network of a global company, Darktrace observed a Shamoon-powered cyber-attack on December 10, 2018 — when several Middle Eastern firms were impacted by a new variant of the malware.

While there has been detailed reporting on the malware files and wiper modules that these latest Shamoon attacks employed, the complete cyber kill chain involved remains poorly understood, while the intrusions that led to the malware’s eventual “detonation” last December has not received nearly as much coverage. As a consequence, this blog post will focus on the insights that Darktrace’s cyber AI generated regarding (a) the activity of the infected devices during the “detonation” and (b) the indicators of compromise that most likely represent lateral movement activity during the weeks prior.

A high-level overview of major events leading up to the detonation on December 10th.

In the following, we will dive into that timeline more deeply in reverse chronological order, going back in time to trace the origins of the attack. Let’s begin with zero hour.

December 10: 42 devices “detonate”

A bird's-eye perspective of how Darktrace identified the alerts in December 2018.

What immediately strikes the analyst’s eye is the fact that a large accumulation of alerts, indicated by the red rectangle above, took place on December 10, followed by complete network silence over the subsequent four days.

These highlighted alerts represent Darktrace’s detection of unusual network scans on remote port 445 that were conducted by 42 infected devices. These devices proceeded to scan more machines — none of which were among those already infected. Such behavior indicates that the compromised devices started scanning and were wiped independently from each other, instead of conducting worming-style activity during the detonation of the malware. The initial scanning device started its scan at 12:56 p.m. UTC, while the last scanning device started its scan at 2:07 p.m. UTC.

Not only was this activity readily apparent from the bird’s-eye perspective shown above, the detonating devices also created the highest-priority Darktrace alerts over a several day period: “Device / Network Scan” and “Device / Expanded Network Scan”:

Moreover, when investigating “Devices — Overall Score,” the detonating devices rank as the most critical assets for the time period December 8–11:

Darktrace AI generated all of the above alerts because they represented significant anomalies from the normal ‘pattern of life’ that the AI had learned for each user and device on the company’s network. Crucially, none of the alerts were the product of predefined ‘rules and signatures’ — the mechanism that conventional security tools rely on to detect cyber-threats. Rather, the AI revealed the activity because the scans were unusual for the devices given their precise nature and timing, demonstrating the necessity of the such a nuanced approach in catching elusive threats like Shamoon. Of further importance is that the company’s network consists of around 15,000 devices, meaning that a rules-based approach without the ability to prioritize the most serious threats would have drowned out the Shamoon alerts in noise.

Now that we’ve seen how cyber AI sounded the alarms during the detonation itself, let’s investigate the various indicators of suspicious lateral movement that precipitated the events of December 10. Most of this activity happened in brief bursts, each of which could have been spotted and remediated if Darktrace had been closely monitored.

November 19: Unusual Remote Powershell Usage (WinRM)

One such burst of unusual activity occurred on November 19, when Darktrace detected 14 devices — desktops and servers alike — that all successfully used the WinRM protocol. None of these devices had previously used WinRM, which is also unusual for the organization’s environment as a whole. Conversely, Remote PowerShell is quite often abused in intrusions during lateral movement. The devices involved did not classify as traditional administrative devices, making their use of WinRM even more suspicious.

Note the clustering of the WinRM activity as indicated by the timestamp on the left.

October 29–31: Scanning, Unusual PsExec & RDP Brute Forcing

Another burst of likely lateral movement occurred between October 29 and 31, when two servers were seen using PsExec in an unusual fashion. No PsExec activity had been observed in the network before or after these detections, prompting Darktrace to flag the behavior. One of the servers conducted an ICMP Ping sweep shortly before the lateral movement. Not only did both servers start using PsExec on the same day, they also used SMBv1 — which, again, was very unusual for the network.

Most legitimate administrative activity involving PsExec these days uses SMBv2. The graphic below shows several Darktrace alerts on one of the involved servers — take note of the chronology of detections at the bottom of the graphic. This clearly reads like an attacker’s diary: ICMP scan, SMBv1 usage, and unusual PsExec usage, followed by new remote service controls. This server was among the top five highest ranking devices during the analyzed time period and was easy to identify.

Following the PsExec use, the servers also started an anomalous amount of remote services via the srvsvc and svcctl pipes over SMB. They did so by starting services on remote devices with which they usually did not communicate — using SMBv1, of course. Some of the attempted communication failed due to access violation and access permission errors. Both are often seen during malicious lateral movement.

Additional context around the SMBv1 and remote srvsvc pipe activity. Note the access failure.

Thanks to Darktrace’s deep packet inspection, we can see exactly what happened on the application layer. Darktrace highlights any unusual or new activity in italics below the connections — we can easily see that the SMB activity is not only unusual because of SMBv1 being used, but also because this server had never used this type of SMB activity remotely to those particular destinations before. We can also observe remote access to the winreg pipe — likely indicating more lateral movement and persistence mechanisms being established.

The other server conducted some targeted address scanning on the network on October 29, employing typical lateral movement ports 135, 139 and 445:

Another device was observed to conduct RDP brute forcing on October 29 around the same time as the above address scan. The desktop made an unusual amount of RDP connections to another internal server.

A clear plateau in increased internal connections (blue) can be seen. Every colored dot on top represents an RDP brute force detection. This was again a clear-cut detection not drowned in other noise — these were the only RDP brute force detections for a several-month monitoring time window.

October 9–11: Unusual Credential Usage

Darktrace identifies the unusual use of credentials — for instance, if administrative credentials are used on client device on which they are not commonly used. This might indicate lateral movement where service accounts or local admin accounts have been compromised.

Darktrace identified another cluster of activity that is likely representing lateral movement, this time involving unusual credential usage. Between October 9 and 11, Darktrace identified 17 cases of new administrative credentials being used on client devices. While new administrative credentials were being used from time to time on devices as part of normal administrative activity, this strong clustering of unusual admin credential usage was outstanding. Additionally, Darktrace also identified the source of some of the credentials being used as unusual.

Conclusion

Having observed a live Shamoon infection within Darktrace, there are a few key takeaways. While the actual detonation on December 10 was automated, the intrusion that built up to it was most likely manual. The fact that all detonating devices started their malicious activity roughly at the same time — without scanning each other — indicates that the payload went off based on a trigger like a scheduled task. This is in line with other reporting on Shamoon 3.

In the weeks leading up to December 10, there were various significant signs of lateral movement that occurred in disparate bursts — indicating a ‘low-and-slow’ manual intrusion.

The adversaries used classic lateral movement techniques like RDP brute forcing, PsExec, WinRM usage, and the abuse of stolen administrative credentials.

While the organization in question had a robust security posture, an attacker only needs to exploit one vulnerability to bring down an entire system. During the lifecycle of the attack, the Darktrace Enterprise Immune System identified the threatening activity in real time and provided numerous suggested actions that could have prevented the Shamoon attack at various stages. However, human action was not taken, while the organization had yet to activate Antigena, Darktrace’s autonomous response solution, which could have acted in the security team’s stead.

Despite having limited scope during the trial period, the Enterprise Immune System was able to detect the lateral movement and detonation of the payload, which was indicative of the malicious Shamoon virus activity. A junior analyst could have easily identified the activity, as high-severity alerts were consistently generated, and the likely infected devices were at the top of the suspicious devices list.

Darktrace Antigena would have prevented the movement responsible for the spread of the virus, while also sending high-severity alerts to the security team to investigate the activity. Even the scanning on port 445 from the detonating devices would have been shut down, as it presented a significant deviation from the known behavior of all scanning devices, which would have further limited the virus’s spread, and ultimately, spared the company and its devices from 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
Max Heinemeyer
Global Field CISO

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May 21, 2025

Evaluating Email Security: How to Select the Best Solution for Your Organization

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When evaluating email security solutions, it’s crucial to move beyond marketing claims and focus on real-world performance. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through an A/B comparison approach – a side-by-side evaluation of vendors based on consistent, predefined criteria.

This method cuts through biases, reveals true capability differences, and ensures that all solutions are assessed on a level playing field. It’s not just about finding an objectively good solution – it’s about finding the best solution for your organization’s specific needs.

An A/B comparison approach is particularly effective for three main reasons:

  1. Eliminates bias: By comparing solutions under identical conditions, it’s easier to spot differences in performance without the fog of marketing jargon.
  2. Highlights real capabilities: Direct side-by-side testing exposes genuine strengths and weaknesses, making it easier to judge which features are impactful versus merely decorative.
  3. Encourages objective decision-making: This structured method reduces emotional or brand-driven decisions, focusing purely on metrics and performance.

Let’s look at the key factors to consider when setting up your evaluation to ensure a fair, accurate, and actionable comparison.

Deployment: Setting the stage for fair evaluation

To achieve a genuine comparison, deployment must be consistent across all evaluated solutions:

  • Establish the same scope: All solutions should be granted identical visibility across relevant tenants and domains to ensure parity.
  • Set a concrete timeline: Deploy and test each solution with the same dataset, at the same points in time. This allows you to observe differences in learning periods and adaptive capabilities.

Equal visibility and synchronized timelines prevent discrepancies that could skew your understanding of each vendor’s true capabilities. But remember – quicker results might not equal better learning or understanding!

Tuning and configurations: Optimizing for real-world conditions

Properly tuning and configuring each solution is critical for fair evaluation:

  • Compare on optimal performance: Consult with each vendor to understand what optimal deployment looks like for their solution, particularly if machine learning is involved.
  • Consider the long term: Configuration adjustments should be made with long-term usage in mind. Short-term fixes can mask long-term challenges.
  • Data visibility: Ensure each solution can retain and provide search capabilities on all data collected throughout the evaluation period.

These steps guarantee that you are comparing fully optimized versions of each platform, not underperforming or misconfigured ones.

Evaluation: Applying consistent metrics

Once deployment and configurations are aligned, the evaluation itself must be consistent, to prevent unfair scoring and help to identify true differences in threat detection and response capabilities.

  • Coordinate your decision criteria: Ensure all vendors are measured against the same set of criteria, established before testing begins.
  • Understand vendor threat classification: Each vendor may have different ways of classifying threats, so be sure to understand these nuances.
  • Maintain communication: If results seem inaccurate, engage with the vendors. Their response and remediation capabilities are part of the evaluation.

Making a decision: Look beyond the metrics

When it comes to reviewing the performance of each solution, it’s important to both consider and look beyond the raw data. This is about choosing the solution that best aligns with your specific business needs, which may include factors and features not captured in the results.

  • Evaluate based on results: Consider accuracy, threats detected, precision, and response effectiveness.
  • Evaluate beyond results: Assess the overall experience, including support, integrations, training, and long-term alignment with your security strategy.
  • Review and communicate: Internally review the findings and communicate them back to the vendors.

Choosing the right email security solution isn’t just about ticking boxes, it’s about strategic alignment with your organization’s goals and the evolving threat landscape. A structured, A/B comparison approach will help ensure that the solution you select is truly the best fit.

For a full checklist of the features and capabilities to compare, as well as how to perform a commercial and technical evaluation, check out the full Buyer’s Checklist for Evaluating Email Security.

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About the author
Carlos Gray
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Email

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May 21, 2025

Adapting to new USCG cybersecurity mandates: Darktrace for ports and maritime systems

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What is the Marine Transportation System (MTS)?

Marine Transportation Systems (MTS) play a substantial roll in U.S. commerce, military readiness, and economic security. Defined as a critical national infrastructure, the MTS encompasses all aspects of maritime transportation from ships and ports to the inland waterways and the rail and roadways that connect them.

MTS interconnected systems include:

  • Waterways: Coastal and inland rivers, shipping channels, and harbors
  • Ports: Terminals, piers, and facilities where cargo and passengers are transferred
  • Vessels: Commercial ships, barges, ferries, and support craft
  • Intermodal Connections: Railroads, highways, and logistics hubs that tie maritime transport into national and global supply chains

The Coast Guard plays a central role in ensuring the safety, security, and efficiency of the MTS, handling over $5.4 trillion in annual economic activity. As digital systems increasingly support operations across the MTS, from crane control to cargo tracking, cybersecurity has become essential to protecting this lifeline of U.S. trade and infrastructure.

Maritime Transportation Systems also enable international trade, making them prime targets for cyber threats from ransomware gangs to nation-state actors.

To defend against growing threats, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) has moved from encouraging cybersecurity best practices to enforcing them, culminating in a new mandate that goes into effect on July 16, 2025. These regulations aim to secure the digital backbone of the maritime industry.

Why maritime ports are at risk

Modern ports are a blend of legacy and modern OT, IoT, and IT digitally connected technologies that enable crane operations, container tracking, terminal storage, logistics, and remote maintenance.

Many of these systems were never designed with cybersecurity in mind, making them vulnerable to lateral movement and disruptive ransomware attack spillover.

The convergence of business IT networks and operational infrastructure further expands the attack surface, especially with the rise of cloud adoption and unmanaged IoT and IIoT devices.

Cyber incidents in recent years have demonstrated how ransomware or malicious activity can halt crane operations, disrupt logistics, and compromise safety at scale threatening not only port operations, but national security and economic stability.

Relevant cyber-attacks on maritime ports

Maersk & Port of Los Angeles (2017 – NotPetya):
A ransomware attack crippled A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company. Operations at 17 ports, including the Port of Los Angeles, were halted due to system outages, causing weeks of logistical chaos.

Port of San Diego (2018 – Ransomware Attack):
A ransomware attack targeted the Port of San Diego, disrupting internal IT systems including public records, business services, and dockside cargo operations. While marine traffic was unaffected, commercial activity slowed significantly during recovery.

Port of Houston (2021 – Nation-State Intrusion):
A suspected nation-state actor exploited a known vulnerability in a Port of Houston web application to gain access to its network. While the attack was reportedly thwarted, it triggered a federal investigation and highlighted the vulnerability of maritime systems.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India (2022 – Ransomware Incident):
India’s largest container port experienced disruptions due to a ransomware attack affecting operations and logistics systems. Container handling and cargo movement slowed as IT systems were taken offline during recovery efforts.

A regulatory shift: From guidance to enforcement

Since the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) of 2002, ports have been required to develop and maintain security plans. Cybersecurity formally entered the regulatory fold in 2020 with revisions to 33 CFR Part 105 and 106, requiring port authorities to assess and address computer system vulnerabilities.

In January 2025, the USCG finalized new rules to enforce cybersecurity practices across the MTS. Key elements include (but are not limited to):

  • A dedicated cyber incident response plan (PR.IP-9)
  • Routine cybersecurity risk assessments and exercises (ID.RA)
  • Designation of a cybersecurity officer and regular workforce training (section 3.1)
  • Controls for access management, segmentation, logging, and encryption (PR.AC-1:7)
  • Supply chain risk management (ID.SC)
  • Incident reporting to the National Response Center

Port operators are encouraged to align their programs with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF 2.0) and NIST SP 800-82r3, which provide comprehensive guidance for IT and OT security in industrial environments.

How Darktrace can support maritime & ports

Unified IT + OT + Cloud coverage

Maritime ports operate in hybrid environments spanning business IT systems (finance, HR, ERP), industrial OT (cranes, gates, pumps, sensors), and an increasing array of cloud and SaaS platforms.

Darktrace is the only vendor that provides native visibility and threat detection across OT/IoT, IT, cloud, and SaaS environments — all in a single platform. This means:

  • Cranes and other physical process control networks are monitored in the same dashboard as Active Directory and Office 365.
  • Threats that start in the cloud (e.g., phishing, SaaS token theft) and pivot or attempt to pivot into OT are caught early — eliminating blind spots that siloed tools miss.

This unification is critical to meeting USCG requirements for network-wide monitoring, risk identification, and incident response.

AI that understands your environment. Not just known threats

Darktrace’s AI doesn’t rely on rules or signatures. Instead, it uses Self-Learning AI TM that builds a unique “pattern of life” for every device, protocol, user, and network segment, whether it’s a crane router or PLC, SCADA server, Workstation, or Linux file server.

  • No predefined baselines or manual training
  • Real-time anomaly detection for zero-days, ransomware, and supply chain compromise
  • Continuous adaptation to new devices, configurations, and operations

This approach is critical in diverse distributed OT environments where change and anomalous activity on the network are more frequent. It also dramatically reduces the time and expertise needed to classify and inventory assets, even for unknown or custom-built systems.

Supporting incident response requirements

A key USCG requirement is that cybersecurity plans must support effective incident response.

Key expectations include:

  • Defined response roles and procedures: Personnel must know what to do and when (RS.CO-1).
  • Timely reporting: Incidents must be reported and categorized according to established criteria (RS.CO-2, RS.AN-4).
  • Effective communication: Information must be shared internally and externally, including voluntary collaboration with law enforcement and industry peers (RS.CO-3 through RS.CO-5).
  • Thorough analysis: Alerts must be investigated, impacts understood, and forensic evidence gathered to support decision-making and recovery (RS.AN-1 through RS.AN-5).
  • Swift mitigation: Incidents must be contained and resolved efficiently, with newly discovered vulnerabilities addressed or documented (RS.MI-1 through RS.MI-3).
  • Ongoing improvement: Organizations must refine their response plans using lessons learned from past incidents (RS.IM-1 and RS.IM-2).

That means detections need to be clear, accurate, and actionable.

Darktrace cuts through the noise using AI that prioritizes only high-confidence incidents and provides natural-language narratives and investigative reports that explain:

  • What’s happening, where it’s happening, when it’s happening
  • Why it’s unusual
  • How to respond

Result: Port security teams often lean and multi-tasked can meet USCG response-time expectations and reporting needs without needing to scale headcount or triage hundreds of alerts.

Built-for-edge deployment

Maritime environments are constrained. Many traditional SaaS deployment types often are unsuitable for tugboats, cranes, or air-gapped terminal systems.

Darktrace builds and maintains its own ruggedized, purpose-built appliances and unique virtual deployment options that:

  • Deploy directly into crane networks or terminal enclosures
  • Require no configuration or tuning, drop-in ready
  • Support secure over-the-air updates and fleet management
  • Operate without cloud dependency, supporting isolated and air-gapped systems

Use case: Multiple ports have been able to deploy Darktrace directly into the crane’s switch enclosure, securing lateral movement paths without interfering with the crane control software itself.

Segmentation enforcement & real-time threat containment

Darktrace visualizes real-time connectivity and attack pathways across IT, OT, and IoT it and integrates with firewalls (e.g., Fortinet, Cisco, Palo Alto) to enforce segmentation using AI insights alongside Darktrace’s own native autonomous and human confirmed response capabilities.

Benefits of autonomous and human confirmed response:

  • Auto-isolate rogue devices before the threat can escalate
  • Quarantine a suspicious connectivity with confidence operations won’t be halted
  • Autonomously buy time for human responders during off-hours or holidays
  • This ensures segmentation isn't just documented but that in the case of its failure or exploitation responses are performed as a compensating control

No reliance on 3rd parties or external connectivity

Darktrace’s supply chain integrity is a core part of its value to critical infrastructure customers. Unlike solutions that rely on indirect data collection or third-party appliances, Darktrace:

  • Uses in-house engineered sensors and appliances
  • Does not require transmission of data to or from the cloud

This ensures confidence in both your cyber visibility and the security of the tools you deploy.

See examples here of how Darktrace stopped supply chain attacks:

Readiness for USCG and Beyond

With a self-learning system that adapts to each unique port environment, Darktrace helps maritime operators not just comply but build lasting cyber resilience in a high-threat landscape.

Cybersecurity is no longer optional for U.S. ports its operationally and nationally critical. Darktrace delivers the intelligence, automation, and precision needed to meet USCG requirements and protect the digital lifeblood of the modern port.

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About the author
Daniel Simonds
Director of Operational Technology
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