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January 14, 2025

Why AI-powered Email Protection Became Essential for this Global Financial Services Leader

Hear the cybersecurity transformation story of this leading money transmitter, who facilitates more than $9 billion in remittances via thousands of agent locations across the US serving more than two million active customers.
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.
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14
Jan 2025

When agile cyber-attackers don’t stop, but pivot  

When he first joined this leading financial services provider, it was clear to the CISO that email security needed to be a top priority. The organization provides transfer services to millions of consumers via a network of thousands of agent locations across the US. Those agents are connected to hundreds of thousands of global payers to complete consumer transfers, ranging from leading financial institutions to small local businesses.

With this vast network of agents and payers, the provider relies on email as its primary communications channel. Transmitting billions of dollars every year, the organization is a prime target for cyber criminals looking to steal credentials, financial assets, and sensitive data.

Vulnerable to attacks with gaps in email security and visibility

The CISO discovered that employees were under constant attack by phishing emails impersonating his company’s own executives. The business email compromise (BEC) attacks were designed to deceive employees into sharing credentials or clicking on malicious links.

Upon discovering that their Microsoft 365 tenant lacked secure configuration, the CISO implemented necessary changes to strengthen the service, including enabling authentication controls. While his efforts significantly reduced BEC attacks, cyber criminals changed their tactics, sending employees malicious phishing emails from seemingly valid email accounts from trusted domains like Google and Yahoo. The emails passed through the organization’s native email filters without detection.

The CISO also sought to strengthen defenses against third-party supply chain attacks that could originate with any of the hundreds of thousands of third-party agents and payers the company works with around the world. While the larger institutions typically have sophisticated email security strategies in place, the smaller businesses may lack the cybersecurity expertise needed to effectively secure and manage their data, putting the organization at risk.

While the CISO knew the company was vulnerable to phishing and third-party threats, he didn’t have visibility across the flow of email. Without access to key metrics and valuable data, he couldn’t get the crucial insights needed to quickly identify possible threats and adjust security protocols.  

Skilled analysts bogged down with low-level tasks

Like many enterprise organizations, this leading financial services provider relied on a crew of highly skilled analysts to respond to alerts and analyze and triage emails most of their workday. “That shouldn’t be how we operate,” said the CISO. “My role and the role of my staff should be to focus on more strategic projects, support the business, and work on important new product development.”

Balancing user experience with mitigating threats

Enabling greater email security measures without negatively impacting the business, user experience, and customer satisfaction was a daunting challenge the CISO and his security team faced. Imposing restrictions that are too stringent could restrict communication, delay the delivery of important messages, or block legitimate emails – potentially slowing down money transfers, frustrating customers, affecting employee productivity, and impacting revenue. However, maintaining controls that are too permissive could result in serious outcomes like data theft, financial fraud, operational disruption, compliance penalties, and customer attrition.  

Self-Learning AI is a game changer

After conducting a thorough POC with several modern security solution providers, this global financial services provider chose the Darktrace / EMAIL an AI-driven email security platform. The CISO said they chose the solution for two key reasons:

First, Darktrace / EMAIL offers modern capabilities

  • Self-Learning AI uses business data to recognize anomalies in communication patterns and user behavior to stop known and unknown threats
  • Secures the organization’s entire mailflow across all inbound, outbound, and lateral email
  • Protects against account takeover attacks by identifying subtle anomalies in cloud SaaS
  • Catches sophisticated threats like impersonations, session token misuse, adversary-in-the-middle attacks, credential theft, and data exfiltration

Second, they pointed to Darktrace’s experience, innovation, and expertise

  • Deep cybersecurity and industry knowledge
  • Demonstrated customers successes worldwide
  • At the forefront of innovation and research, establishing new thresholds in cybersecurity, with technology advances backed by over 200 patents and pending applications

Moreover, and most importantly, this organization trusted Darktrace to deliver on its promises.  And according to the CISO, that’s just what happened.

Significantly reduced phishing threats and business risk

Since implementing Darktrace / EMAIL, the threat posed by BEC attacks has dropped sharply. “Phishing is not an issue that concerns me anymore. I estimate we are now identifying and blocking more than 85% of threats our previous solution was missing,” said the CISO. The biggest factor contributing to this success? The power of AI.

With Darktrace / EMAIL, this leadingglobal financial services provider is identifying and blocking more than 85% ofthe phishing email threats its previous solution missed.

AI wasn’t originally on the financial service provider’s list of criteria. But after seeing AI in action and understanding its potential to vastly scale their detection and response capabilities–without adding headcount, the CISO determined AI wasn’t an option but an imperative. “AI is essential when it comes to email security, it’s an absolute necessity,” he said.  

Darktrace / EMAIL’s Self-Learning AI is uniquely powerful because it learns the content and context of every internal and external user and can spot the subtle differences in behavioral patterns that point to possible social engineering attacks. Through patented behavioral anomaly detection, Darktrace / EMAIL continuously learns about the organization’s business and users, based on its own operations and data, adjusting security protocols accordingly.  

For example, when clients are transferring large amounts of money, they are required to send photos of their driver’s licenses and passports via email to the organization for verification – accounting for a large percentage of its’ inbound email. Darktrace / EMAIL recognizes that it’s normal for customers to send this sensitive information, and it also knows that it’s not normal for that same sensitive information to leave the organization via outbound mail. In addition, Darktrace identifies patterns in user behavior, including who employees communicate with and what kind of information they share. When user behavior falls outside of established norms, such as an email sent from the CFO to employees the CEO would not typically communicate with, Darktrace can take the appropriate action to remove the threat.  

“After the implementation, we gave the solution two weeks to ingest our data and learn the specifics of our business. After that, it was perfect, just amazing,” said the CISO.  

Boosted team productivity and elevated value to the business

With Darktrace / EMAIL, the organization has successfully scaled its detection and response efforts without scaling personnel. The security team has reduced the number of emails requiring manual investigation by 90%. And because analysts now have the benefit of Darktrace / EMAIL’s analytics and reporting, the investigation process is much easier and faster. “The impact of this solution on my team has been very positive,” said the CISO. “Darktrace / EMAIL essentially manages itself, freeing up time for our skilled analysts–and for myself–to focus on more important projects.”  

The security team has scaled its detection and response efforts without scaling personnel,reducing the number of emails it manually investigates by 90%

Increased visibility delivers business-critical insights

You can’t control what you can’t see, and with zero visibility into critical data and metrics, this financial services provider was at a serious disadvantage. That has all changed. “Something that I love about Darktrace / EMAIL is the visibility that it provides into key metrics from a single dashboard. We can now understand the behavior of our email flow and data traffic and can make insight-driven decisions to continuously optimize our email security. It’s awesome,” said the CISO.  

An efficient user interface also improves productivity and reduces mean time to action by enabling teams to easily visualize key data points and quickly evaluate what actions need to be taken. Darktrace / EMAIL was developed with that experience in mind, allowing users to access data and take quick action without having to constantly log into the solution.

Keeping the business focused on cybersecurity

The leadership of this global organization takes information security very seriously, understanding that cyber-attacks aren’t just an IT problem but a business problem. When it came to evaluating Darktrace, the CISO said numerous stakeholders were involved including C-level executives, infrastructure, and IT, which operates separately from information security. The CISO initially identified the need, conducted the market research, engaged the target vendors, and then brought the other decision makers into the process for the solution evaluation and final decision. “Our IT group, infrastructure team, CTO and CEO are all involved when it comes to making major cybersecurity investments. We always try to make these decisions jointly to ensure we are taking everything into consideration.”

The organization has reached a higher level of maturity when it comes to email cybersecurity. The ability to automate routine email detection and investigation tasks has both strengthened the organization’s cyber resilience and enabled the CISO and his team to contribute more to the business. His advice for other IT leaders facing the same email security and visibility challenges he once experienced: “For those companies that need greater insight and control over their email but have limited resources and people, AI is the answer.”  

Darktrace / Email solution brief screenshot

Secure Your Inbox with Cutting-Edge AI Email Protection

Discover the most advanced cloud-native AI email security solution to protect your domain and brand while preventing phishing, novel social engineering, business email compromise, account takeover, and data loss.

  • Gain up to 13 days of earlier threat detection and maximize ROI on your current email security
  • Experience 20-25% more threat blocking power with Darktrace / EMAIL
  • Stop the 58% of threats bypassing traditional email security

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
The Darktrace Community

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August 12, 2025

ISO/IEC 42001: 2023: A milestone in AI standards at Darktrace  

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Darktrace announces ISO/IEC 42001 accreditation

Darktrace is thrilled to announce that we are one of the first cybersecurity companies to achieve ISO/IEC 42001 accreditation for the responsible management of AI systems. This isn’t just a milestone for us, it’s a sign of where the AI industry is headed. ISO/IEC 42001 is quickly emerging as the global benchmark for separating vendors who truly innovate with AI from those who simply market it.

For customers, it’s more than a badge, it’s assurance that a vendor’s AI is built responsibly, governed with rigor, and backed by the expertise of real AI teams, keeping your data secure while driving meaningful innovation.

This is a critical milestone for Darktrace as we continue to strengthen our offering, mature our governance and compliance frameworks for AI management, expand our research and development capabilities, and further our commitment to the development of responsible AI.  

It cements our commitment to providing secure, trustworthy and proactive cybersecurity solutions that our customers can rely on and complements our existing compliance framework, consisting of certifications for:

  • ISO/IEC 27001:2022 – Information Security Management System
  • ISO/IEC 27018:2019 – Protection of Personally Identifiable Information in Public Cloud Environments
  • Cyber Essentials – A UK Government-backed certification scheme for cybersecurity baselines

What is ISO/IEC 42001:2023?

In response to the unique challenges that AI poses, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) introduced the ISO/IEC 42001:2023 framework in December 2023 to help organizations providing or utilizing AI-based products or services to demonstrate responsible development and use of AI systems. To achieve the accreditation, organizations are required to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve their Artificial Intelligence Management System (AIMS).

ISO/IEC 42001:2023 is the first of its kind, providing valuable guidance for this rapidly changing field of technology. It addresses the unique ethical and technical challenges AI poses by setting out a structured way to manage risks such as transparency, accuracy and misuse without losing opportunities. By design, it balances the benefits of innovation against the necessity of a proper governance structure.

Being certified means the organization has met the requirements of the ISO/IEC 42001 standard, is conforming to all applicable regulatory and legislative requirements, and has implemented thorough processes to address AI risks and opportunities.

What is the  ISO/IEC 42001:2023 accreditation process?

Darktrace partnered with BSI over an 11-month period to undertake the accreditation. The process involved developing and implementing a comprehensive AI management system that builds on our existing certified frameworks, addresses the risks and opportunities of using and developing cutting-edge AI systems, underpins our AI objectives and policies, and meets our regulatory and legal compliance requirements.

The AI Management System, which takes in our people, processes, and products, was extensively audited by BSI against the requirements of the standard, covering all aspects spanning the design of our AI, use of AI within the organization, and our competencies, resources and HR processes. It is an in-depth process that we’re thrilled to have undertaken, making us one of the first in our industry to achieve certification for a globally recognized AI system.

The scope of Darktrace’s certification is particularly wide due to our unique Self-Learning approach to AI for cybersecurity, which uses multi-layered AI systems consisting of varied AI techniques to address distinct cybersecurity tasks. The certification encompasses production and provision of AI systems based on anomaly detection, clustering, classifiers, regressors, neural networks, proprietary and third-party large language models for proactive, detection, response and recovery cybersecurity applications. Darktrace additionally elected to adopt all Annex A controls present in the ISO/IEC 42001 standard.

What are the benefits of an AI Management System?

While AI is not a new or novel concept, the AI industry has accelerated at an unprecedented rate in the past few years, increasing operational efficiency, driving innovation, and automating cumbersome processes in the workplace.

At the same time, the data privacy, security and bias risks created by rapid innovation in AI have been well documented.

Thus, an AI Management System enables organizations to confidently establish and adhere to governance in a way that conforms to best practice, promotes adherence, and is in line with current and emerging regulatory standards.

Not only is this vital in a unique and rapidly evolving field like AI, it additionally helps organization’s balance the drive for innovation with the risks the technology can present, helping to get the best out of their AI development and usage.

What are the key components of ISO/IEC 42001?

The Standard puts an emphasis on responsible AI development and use, requiring organizations to:

  • Establish and implement an AI Management System
  • Commit to the responsible development of AI against established, measurable objectives
  • Have in place a process to manage, monitor and adapt to risks in an effective manner
  • Commit to continuous improvement of their AI Management System

The AI Standard is similar in composition to other ISO standards, such as ISO/IEC 27001:2022, which many organizations may already be familiar with. Further information as to the structure of ISO/IEC 42001 can be found in Annex A.

What it means for Darktrace’s customers

Our certification against ISO/IEC 42001 demonstrates Darktrace’s commitment to delivering industry-leading Self-Learning AI in the name of cybersecurity resilience. Our stakeholders, customers and partners can be confident that Darktrace is responsibly, ethically and securely developing its AI systems, and is managing the use of AI in our day-to-day operations in a compliant, secure and ethical manner. It means:

  • You can trust our AI: We can demonstrate our AI is developed responsibly, in a transparent manner and in accordance with ethical rules. For more information and to learn about Darktrace's responsible AI in cybersecurity approach, please see here.
  • Our products are backed by innovation and integrity: Darktrace drives cutting edge AI innovation with ethical governance and customer trust at its core.
  • You are partnering with an organization which stays ahead of regulatory changes: In an evolving AI landscape, partnering with Darktrace helps you to stay prepared for emerging compliance and regulatory demands in your supply chain.

Achieving ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification is not just a checkpoint for us. It represents our unwavering commitment to setting a higher standard for AI in cybersecurity. It reaffirms our leadership in building and implementing responsible AI and underscores our mission to continuously innovate and lead the way in the industry.

Why ISO/IEC 42001 matters for every AI vendor you trust

In a market where “AI” can mean anything from a true, production-grade system to a thin marketing layer, ISO/IEC 42001 acts as a critical differentiator. Vendors who have earned this certification aren’t just claiming they build responsible AI, they’ve proven it through an independent, rigorous audit of how they design, deploy, and manage their systems.

For you as a customer, that means:

You know their AI is real: Certified vendors have dedicated, skilled AI teams building and maintaining systems that meet measurable standards, not just repackaging off-the-shelf tools with an “AI” label.

Your data is safeguarded: Compliance with ISO/IEC 42001 includes stringent governance over data use, bias, transparency, and risk management.

You’re partnering with innovators: The certification process encourages continuous improvement, meaning your vendor is actively advancing AI capabilities while keeping ethics and security in focus.

In short, ISO/IEC 42001 is quickly becoming the global badge of credible AI development. If your vendor can’t show it, it’s worth asking how they manage AI risk, whether their governance is mature enough, and how they ensure innovation doesn’t outpace accountability.

Annex A: The Structure of ISO/IEC 42001

ISO/IEC 42001 has requirements for which seven adherence is required for an organization seeking to obtain or maintain its certification:

  • Context of the organization – organizations need to demonstrate an understanding of the internal and external factors influencing the organization’s AI Management System.
  • Leadership – senior leadership teams need to be committed to implementing AI governance within their organizations, providing direction and support across all aspects AI Management System lifecycle.
  • Planning – organizations need to put meaningful and manageable processes in place to identify risks and opportunities related to the AI Management System to achieve responsible AI objectives and mitigate identified risks.
  • Support – demonstrating a commitment to provisioning of adequate resources, information, competencies, awareness and communication for the AI Management System is a must to ensure that proper oversight and management of the system and its risks can be achieved.
  • Operation – establishing processes necessary to support the organization’s AI system development and usage, in conformance with the organization’s AI policy, objectives and requirements of the standard. Correcting the course of any deviations within good time is paramount.
  • Performance evaluation – the organization must be able to demonstrate that it has the capability and willingness to regularly monitor and evaluate the performance of the AI Management System effectively, including actioning any corrections and introducing new processes where relevant.
  • Improvement – relying on an existing process will not be sufficient to ensure compliance with the AI Standard. Organizations must commit to monitoring of existing systems and processes to ensure that the AI Management System is continually enhanced and improved.

To assist organizations in seeking the above, four annexes are included within the AI Standard’s rubric, which outline the objectives and measures an organization may wish to implement to address risks related to the design and operation of their AI Management System through the introduction of normative controls. Whilst they are not prescriptive, Darktrace has implemented the requirements of these Annexes to enable it to appropriately demonstrate the effectiveness of its AI Management System. We have placed a heavy emphasis on Annex A which contains these normative controls which we, and other organizations seeking to achieve certification, can align with to address the objectives and measures, such as:

  • Enforcement of policies related to AI.
  • Setting responsibilities within the organization, and expectation of roles and responsibilities.
  • Creating processes and guidelines for escalating and handling AI concerns.
  • Making resources for AI systems available to users.
  • Assessing impacts of AI systems internally and externally.
  • Implementing processes across the entire AI system life cycle.
  • Understanding treatment of Data for AI systems.
  • Defining what information is, and should be available, for AI systems.
  • Considering and defining use cases for the AI systems.
  • Considering the impact of the AI System on third-party and customer relationships.

The remaining annexes provide guidance on implementing Annex A’s controls, objectives and primary risk sources of AI implementation, and considering how the AI Management System can be used across domains or sectors responsibly.

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About the author
William Booth
Director of Cybersecurity Compliance

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August 12, 2025

Minimizing Permissions for Cloud Forensics: A Practical Guide to Tightening Access in the Cloud

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Most cloud environments are over-permissioned and under-prepared for incident response.

Security teams need access to logs, snapshots, and configuration data to understand how an attack unfolded, but giving blanket access opens the door to insider threats, misconfigurations, and lateral movement.

So, how do you enable forensics without compromising your security posture?

The dilemma: balancing access and security

There is a tension between two crucial aspects of cloud security that create a challenge for cloud forensics.

One aspect is the need for Security Operations Center (SOC) and Incident Response (IR) teams to access comprehensive data for investigating and resolving security incidents.

The other conflicting aspect is the principle of least privilege and minimal manual access advocated by cloud security best practices.

This conflict is particularly pronounced in modern cloud environments, where traditional physical access controls no longer apply, and infrastructure-as-code and containerization have transformed the landscape.

There are several common but less-than-ideal approaches to this challenge:

  • Accepting limited data access, potentially leaving incidents unresolved
  • Granting root-level access during major incidents, risking further compromise

Relying on cloud or DevOps teams to retrieve data, causing delays and potential miscommunication

[related-resource]

Challenges in container forensics

Containers present unique challenges for forensic investigations due to their ephemeral and dynamic nature. The orchestration and management of containers, whether on private clusters or using services like AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), introduce complexities in capturing and analyzing forensic data.

To effectively investigate containers, it's often necessary to acquire the underlying volume of a node or perform memory captures. However, these actions require specific Identity and Access Management (IAM) and network access to the node, as well as familiarity with the container environment, which may not always be straightforward.

An alternative method of collection in containerized environments is to utilize automated tools to collect this evidence. Since they can detect malicious activity and collect relevant data without needing human input, they can act immediately, securing evidence that might be lost by the time a human analyst is available to collect it manually.

Additionally, automation can help significantly with access and permissions. Instead of analysts needing the correct permissions for the account, service, and node, as well as deep knowledge of the container service itself, for any container from which they wish to collect logs. They can instead collect them, and have them all presented in one place, at the click of a button.

A better approach: practical strategies for cloud forensics

It's crucial to implement strategies that strike a balance between necessary access and stringent security controls.

Here are several key approaches:

1. Dedicated cloud forensics accounts

Establishing a separate cloud account or subscription specifically for forensic activities is foundational. This approach isolates forensic activities from regular operations, preventing potential contamination from compromised environments. Dedicated accounts also enable tighter control over access policies, ensuring that forensic operations do not inadvertently expose sensitive data to unauthorized users.

A separate account allows for:

  • Isolation: The forensic investigation environment is isolated from potentially compromised environments, reducing the risk of cross-contamination.
  • Tighter access controls: Policies and controls can be more strictly enforced in a dedicated account, reducing the likelihood of unauthorized access.
  • Simplified governance: A clear and simplified chain of custody for digital evidence is easier to maintain, ensuring that forensic activities meet legal and regulatory requirements.

For more specifics:

2. Cross-account roles with least privilege

Using cross-account IAM roles, the forensics account can access other accounts, but only with permissions that are strictly necessary for the investigation. This ensures that the principle of least privilege is upheld, reducing the risk of unauthorized access or data exposure during the forensic process.

3. Temporary credentials for just-in-time access

Leveraging temporary credentials, such as AWS STS tokens, allows for just-in-time access during an investigation. These credentials are short-lived and scoped to specific resources, ensuring that access is granted only when absolutely necessary and is automatically revoked after the investigation is completed. This reduces the window of opportunity for potential attackers to exploit elevated permissions.

For AWS, you can use commands such as:

aws sts get-session-token --duration-seconds 43200

aws sts assume-role --role-arn role-to-assume --role-session-name "sts-session-1" --duration-seconds 43200

For Azure, you can use commands such as:

az ad app credential reset --id <appId> --password <sp_password> --end-date 2024-01-01

For more details for Google Cloud environments, see “Create short-lived credentials for a service account” and the request.time parameter.

4. Tag-based access control

Pre-deploying access control based on resource tags is another effective strategy. By tagging resources with identifiers like "Forensics," access can be dynamically granted only to those resources that are relevant to the investigation. This targeted approach minimizes the risk of overexposure and ensures that forensic teams can quickly and efficiently access the data they need.

For example, in AWS:

Condition: StringLike: aws:ResourceTag/Name: ForensicsEnabled

Condition: StringLike: ssm:resourceTag/SSMEnabled: True

For example, in Azure:

"Condition": "StringLike(Resource[Microsoft.Resources/tags.example_key], '*')"

For example, in Google Cloud:

expression: > resource.matchTag('tagKeys/ForensicsEnabled', '*')

Tighten access, enhance security

The shift to cloud environments demands a rethinking of how we approach forensic investigations. By implementing strategies like dedicated cloud forensic accounts, cross-account roles, temporary credentials, and tag-based access control, organizations can strike the right balance between access and security. These practices not only enhance the effectiveness of forensic investigations but also ensure that access is tightly controlled, reducing the risk of exacerbating an incident or compromising the investigation.

Find the right tools for your cloud security

Darktrace delivers a proactive approach to cyber resilience in a single cybersecurity platform, including cloud coverage.

Darktrace’s cloud offerings have been bolstered with the acquisition of Cado Security Ltd., which enables security teams to gain immediate access to forensic-level data in multi-cloud, container, serverless, SaaS, and on-premises environments.

In addition to having these forensics capabilities, Darktrace / CLOUD is a real-time Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) solution built with advanced AI to make cloud security accessible to all security teams and SOCs. By using multiple machine learning techniques, Darktrace brings unprecedented visibility, threat detection, investigation, and incident response to hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

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About the author
Calum Hall
Technical Content Researcher
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