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March 4, 2019

The VR Goldilocks Problem and Value of Continued Recognition

Security and Operations Teams face challenges when it comes to visibility and recognition. Learn more about how we find a solution to the problems!
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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04
Mar 2019

First, some context about VR

Security Operations teams face two fundamental challenges when it comes to 'finding bad'.

The first is gaining and maintaining appropriate visibility into what is happening in our environments. Visibility is provided through data (e.g. telemetry, logs). The trinity of data sources for visibility concern accounts/credentials, devices, and network traffic.

The second challenge is getting good recognition within the scope of what is visible. Recognition is fundamentally about what alerting and workflows you can implement and automate in response to activity that is suspicious or malicious.

Visibility and Recognition each have their own different associated issues.

Visibility is a problem about what is and can be generated and either read as telemetry, or logged and stored locally, or shipped to a central platform. The timelines and completeness of what visibility you have can depend on factors such as how much data you can or can't store locally on devices that generate data - and for how long; what your data pipeline and data platform look like (e.g. if you are trying to centralise data for analysis); or the capability of host software agents you have to process certain information locally.

The constraints on visibility sets the bar for factors like coverage, timelines and completeness of what recognition you can achieve. Without visibility, we cannot recognize at all. With limited visibility, what we can recognize may not have much value. With the right visibility, we can still fail to recognise the right things. And with too much recognition, we can quickly overload our senses.

A good example of a technology that offers the opportunity to solve these challenges at the network layer is Darktrace. Their technology provides visibility, from a network traffic perspective, into data that concerns devices and the accounts/credentials associated with them. They then provide recognition on top of this by using Machine Learning (ML) models for anomaly detection. Their models alert on a wide range of activities that may be indicative of threat activity, (e.g. malware execution and command and control, a technical exploit, data exfiltration and so on).

The major advantage they provide, compared to traditional Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and other vendors who also use ML for network anomaly detection, is that you can a) adjust the sensitivity of their algorithms and b) build your own recognition for particular patterns of interest. For example, if you want to monitor what connections are made to one or two servers, you can set up alerts for any change to expected patterns. This means you can create and adjust custom recognition based on your enterprise context and tune it easily in response to how context changes over time.

The Goldilocks VR Matrix

Below is what we call the VR Goldilocks Matrix at PBX Group Security. We use it to assess technology, measure our own capability and processes, and ask ourselves hard questions about where we need to focus to get the most value from our budget, (or make cuts / shift investment) if we need to.

In the squares are some examples of what you (maybe) should think about doing if you find yourself there.

Important questions to ask about VR

One of the things about Visibility and Recognition is that it’s not a given they are ‘always on’. Sometimes there are failure modes for visibility (causing a downstream issue with recognition). And sometimes there are failure modes or conditions under which you WANT to pause recognition.

The key questions you must have answers to about this include:

  • Under what conditions might I lose visibility?
  • How would I know if I have?
  • Is that loss a blind spot (i.e. data is lost for a given time period)…
  • …or is it 'a temporal delay’ (e.g. a connection fails and data is batched for moving from A to B but that doesn’t happen for a few hours)?
  • What are the recognitions that might be impacted by either of the above?
  • What is my expectation for the SLA on those recognitions from ‘cause of alert’ to ‘response workflow’?
  • Under what conditions would I be willing to pause recognition, change the workflow for what happens upon recognition, or stop it all together?
  • What is the stacked ranked list of ‘must, should, could’ for all recognition and why?

Alerts. Alerts everywhere.

More often than not, Security Operations teams suffer the costs of wasted time due to noisy alerts from certain data sources. As a consequence, it's more difficult for them to single out malicious behavior as suspicious or benign. The number of alerts that are generated due to out of the box SIEM platform configurations for sources like Web Proxies and Domain Controllers are often excessive, and the cost to tune those rules can also be unpalatable. Therefore, rather than trying to tune alerts, teams might make a call to switch them off until someone can get around to figuring out a better way. There’s no use having hypothetical recognition, but no workflow to act on what is generate (other than compliance).

This is where technologies that use ML can help. There are two basic approaches...

One is to avoid alerting until multiple conditions are met that indicate a high probability of threat activity. In this scenario, rather than alerting on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th ‘suspicious activities’, you wait until you have a critical mass of indicators, and then you generate one high fidelity alert that has a much greater weighting to be malicious. This requires both a high level of precision and accuracy in alerting, and naturally some trade off in the time that can pass before an alert for malicious activity is generated.

The other is to alert on ‘suspicious actives 1-4' and let an analyst or automated process decide if this merits further investigation. This approach sacrifices accuracy for precision, but provides rapid context on whether one, or multiple, conditions are met that push the machine(s) up the priority list in the triage queue. To solve for the lower level of accuracy, this approach can make decisions about how long to sustain alerting. For example, if a host triggers multiple anomaly detection models, rather than continue to send alerts (and risk the SOC deciding to turn them off), the technology can pause alerts after a certain threshold. If a machine has not been quarantined or taken off the network after 10 highly suspicious behaviors are flagged, there is a reasonable assumption that the analyst will have dug into these and found the activity is legitimate.

Punchline 1: the value of Continued Recognition even when 'not malicious'

The topic of paused detections was raised after a recent joint exercise between PBX Group Security and Darktrace in testing Darktrace’s recognition. After a machine being used by the PBX Red Team breached multiple high priority models on Darktrace, the technology stopped alerting on further activity. This was because the initial alerts would have been severe enough to trigger a SOC workflow. This approach is designed to solve the problem of alert overload on a machine that is behaving anomalously but is not in fact malicious. Rather than having the SOC turn off alerts for that machine (which could later be used maliciously), the alerts are paused.

One of the outcomes of the test was that the PBX Detect team advised they would still want those alerts to exist for context to see what else the machine does (i.e. to understand its pattern of life). Now, rather than pausing alerts, Darktrace is surfacing this to customers to show where a rule is being paused and create an option to continue seeing alerts for a machine that has breached multiple models.

Which leads us on to our next point…

Punchline 2: the need for Atomic Tests for detection

Both Darktrace and Photobox Security are big believers in Atomic Red Team testing, which involves ‘unit tests’ that repeatedly (or at a certain frequency) test a detection using code. Unit tests automate the work of Red Teams when they discovery control strengths (which you want to monitor continuously for uptime) or control gaps (which you want to monitor for when they are closed). You could design atomic tests to launch a series of particular attacks / threat actor actions from one machine in a chained event. Or you could launch different discreet actions from different machines, each of which has no prior context for doing bad stuff. This allows you to scale the sample size for testing what recognition you have (either through ML or more traditional SIEM alerting). Doing this also means you don't have to ask Red Teams to repeat the same tests again, allowing them to focus on different threat paths to achieve objectives.

Mitre Att&ck is an invaluable framework for this. Many vendors are now aligning to Att&ck to show what they can recognize relating to attack TTPs (Tools, Tactics and Procedures). This enables security teams to map what TTPs are relevant to them (e.g. by using threat intel about the campaigns of threat actor groups that are targeting them). Atomic Red Team tests can then be used to assure that expected detections are operational or find gaps that need closing.

If you miss detections, then you know you need to optimise the recognition you have. If you get too many recognitions outside of the atomic test conditions, you either have to accept a high false positive rate because of the nature of the network, or you can tune your detection sensitivity. The opportunities to do this with technology based on ML and anomaly detection are significant, because you can quickly see for new attack types what a unit test tells you about your current detections and that coverage you think you have is 'as expected'.

Punchline 3: collaboration for the win

Using well-structured Red Team exercises can help your organisation and your technology partners learn new things about how we can collectively find and halt evil. They can also help defenders learn more about good assumptions to build into ML models, as well as covering edge cases where alerts have 'business intelligence' value vs ‘finding bad’.

If you want to understand the categorisations of ways that your populations of machines act over time, there is no better way to do it than through anomaly detection and feeding alerts into a system that supports SOC operations as well as knowledge management (e.g. a graph database).

Working like this means that we also help get the most out of the visibility and recognition we have. Security solutions can be of huge help to Network and Operations teams for troubleshooting or answering questions about network architecture. Often, it’s just a shift in perspective that unlocks cross-functional value from investments in security tech and process. Understanding that recognition doesn’t stop with security is another great example of where technologies that let you build your own logic into recognition can make a huge difference above protecting the bottom line, to adding top line value.

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 1, 2025

Your Vendors, Your Risk: Rethinking Third-Party Security in the Age of Supply Chain Attacks

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When most people hear the term supply chain attack, they often imagine a simple scenario: one organization is compromised, and that compromise is used as a springboard to attack another. This kind of lateral movement is common, and often the entry vector is as mundane and as dangerous as email.

Take, for instance, a situation where a trusted third-party vendor is breached. An attacker who gains access to their systems can then send malicious emails to your organization, emails that appear to come from a known and reputable source. Because the relationship is trusted, traditional phishing defenses may not be triggered, and recipients may be more inclined to engage with malicious content. From there, the attacker can establish a foothold, move laterally, escalate privileges, and launch a broader campaign.

This is one dimension of a supply chain cyber-attack, and it’s well understood in many security circles. But the risk doesn’t end there. In fact, it goes deeper, and it often hits the most important asset of all: your customers' data.

The risk beyond the inbox

What happens when customer data is shared with a third party for legitimate processing purposes for example billing, analytics, or customer service and that third party is then compromised?

In that case, your customer data is breached, even if your own systems were never touched. That’s the uncomfortable truth about modern cybersecurity: your risk is no longer confined to your own infrastructure. Every entity you share data with becomes an extension of your attack surface. Thus, we should rethink how we perceive responsibility.

It’s tempting to think that securing our environment is our job, and securing their environment is theirs. But if a breach of their environment results in the exposure of our customers, the accountability and reputational damage fall squarely on our shoulders.

The illusion of boundaries

In an era where digital operations are inherently interconnected, the lines of responsibility can blur quickly. Legally and ethically, organizations are still responsible for the data they collect even if that data is processed, stored, or analyzed by a third party. A customer whose data is leaked because of a vendor breach will almost certainly hold the original brand responsible, not the third-party processor they never heard of.

This is particularly important for industries that rely on extensive outsourcing and platform integrations (SaaS platforms, marketing tools, CRMs, analytics platforms, payment processors). The list of third-party vendors with access to customer data grows year over year. Each integration adds convenience, but also risk.

Encryption isn’t a silver bullet

One of the most common safeguards used in these data flows is encryption. Encrypting customer data in transit is a smart and necessary step, but it’s far from enough. Once data reaches the destination system, it typically needs to be decrypted for use. And the moment it is decrypted, it becomes vulnerable to a variety of attacks like ransomware, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, and more.

In other words, the question isn’t just is the data secure in transit? The more important question is how is it protected once it arrives?

A checklist for organizations evaluating third-parties

Given these risks, what should responsible organizations do when they need to share customer data with third parties?

Start by treating third-party security as an extension of your own security program. Here are some foundational controls that can make a difference:

Due diligence before engagement: Evaluate third-party vendors based on their security posture before signing any contracts. What certifications do they hold? What frameworks do they follow? What is their incident response capability?

Contractual security clauses: Build in specific security requirements into vendor contracts. These can include requirements for encryption standards, access control policies, and data handling protocols.

Third-party security assessments: Require vendors to provide evidence of their security controls. Independent audits, penetration test results, and SOC 2 reports can all provide useful insights.

Ongoing monitoring and attestations: Security isn’t static. Make sure vendors provide regular security attestations and reports. Where possible, schedule periodic reviews or audits, especially for vendors handling sensitive data.

Minimization and segmentation: Don’t send more data than necessary. Data minimization limits the exposure in the event of a breach. Segmentation, both within your environment and within vendor access levels, can further reduce risk.

Incident response planning: Ensure you have a playbook for handling third-party incidents, and that vendors do as well. Coordination in the event of a breach should be clear and rapid.

The human factor: Customers and communication

There’s another angle to supply chain cyber-attacks that’s easy to overlook: the post-breach exploitation of public knowledge. When a breach involving customer data hits the news, it doesn’t take long for cybercriminals to jump on the opportunity.

Attackers can craft phishing emails that appear to be follow-ups from the affected organization: “Click here to reset your password,” “Confirm your details due to the breach,” etc.

A breach doesn’t just put customer data at risk it also opens the door to further fraud, identity theft, and financial loss through social engineering. This is why post-breach communication and phishing mitigation strategies are valuable components of an incident response strategy.

Securing what matters most

Ultimately, protecting against supply chain cyber-attacks isn’t just about safeguarding your own perimeter. It’s about defending the integrity of your customers’ data, wherever it goes. When customer data is entrusted to you, the duty of care doesn’t end at your firewall.

Relying on vendors to “do their part” is not enough. True due diligence means verifying, validating, and continuously monitoring those extended attack surfaces. It means designing controls that assume failure is possible, and planning accordingly.

In today’s threat landscape, cybersecurity is no longer just a technical discipline. It’s a trust-building exercise. Your customers expect you to protect their information, and rightly so. And when a supply chain attack happens, whether the breach originated with you or your partner, the damage lands in the same place: your brand, your customers, your responsibility.

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About the author
Tony Jarvis
VP, Field CISO

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April 30, 2025

Boosting Security with Azure Virtual Network TAP Traffic Mirroring

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We are thrilled to announce that Darktrace is a launch partner for the Public Preview of Microsoft Azure Virtual Network Terminal Access Point (TAP). As Microsoft's 2024 UK Partner of the Year, we continue to innovate alongside Microsoft to deliver proactive cyber protection tailored to every organization.

Enhanced Defense Across the Modern Network

Modern networks are expanding far beyond on-premises into virtual environments, cloud and hybrid networks. More than 50% of incidents will come from cloud network activity by 2029, meaning defenders need a solution that can level the playing field against complex attacks that traverse multiple areas of a digital estate, including north-south and east-west traffic.

With Azure Virtual Network TAP, Darktrace’s self-learning AI gains seamless access to granular packet data in hybrid environments. This integration helps our Cyber AI platform build a comprehensive understanding of a customers’ Azure network. Microsoft's recent enhancement allows Virtual Network TAP to mirror the full throughput of VMs without impacting VM bandwidth, enabling agentless Cyber AI defense across these instances.

Darktrace's Cyber AI provides real-time visibility and adaptive, autonomous defense for your Microsoft security strategy. Our platform continuously learns the normal behavior of every user, device, and workload in your environment. This deep understanding of usual 'patterns of life' enables Darktrace to detect subtle deviations that indicate threats, from account takeovers to critical misconfigurations.

Our bespoke, real-time knowledge of usual activity allows Darktrace to identify unknown and unpredictable threats that bypass policy-based defenses—without relying on rules, signatures, or prior assumptions. This approach is a powerful compliment to Microsoft’s unprecedented threat intelligence.

Expanding Azure Virtual Network TAP

Azure Virtual Network TAP allows continuous streaming of virtual machine network traffic, which customers can leverage for Darktrace’s AI-driven threat detection and investigation. Darktrace / NETWORK passively ingests traffic from on-premises, virtual, cloud, hybrid environments, and remote devices, analyzing both encrypted and decrypted packets to uncover unusual activity in real-time. Unlike other NDR vendors that process data in the cloud, our industry-leading Self-Learning AI is deployed locally and trained solely on your data, ensuring tailored security outcomes without compromising privacy.

Benefits to Darktrace Customers

Darktrace customers will experience enhanced security through deeper insights into network traffic, enabling more accurate threat detection and response. The ability to mirror full VM throughput without affecting bandwidth ensures optimal performance, while agentless defense reduces barrier to entry and simplifies management. Customers benefit from proactive protection by continuously monitoring and analyzing traffic to identify and mitigate threats before they cause harm. Additionally, seamless integration with existing Azure environments leverages the power of Darktrace’s AI for enhanced security.

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About the author
Adam Stevens
Director of Product, Cloud Security
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