Biomerics

Challenge: Sophisticated email attacks threatening high-stakes production

Biomerics, a medical device manufacturer with 14+ facilities and 3,200 employees, faced highly targeted email threats that consistently evaded traditional security layers. Despite strong endpoint protection, network scanning, Microsoft-native controls, and tuned email filters, advanced attackers continued to exploit one persistent weakness: vendor account compromise.

These attacks were exceptionally hard to spot. Threat actors infiltrated trusted partner accounts, studied real email threads, and inserted convincing messages that passed all authentication checks. Requests to change banking information appeared legitimate on the surface — yet were behaviorally abnormal.

Standard controls like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC didn't detect these anomalies, leaving the IT team stuck in a reactive cycle. Each incident required hours of manual investigation and coordination with partner companies. More critically, any successful intrusion risked spreading into production environments — where even brief downtime could translate into hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in lost output.

Biomerics needed a solution capable of identifying subtle behavioral deviations in communication, not just known indicators of compromise.

Why Darktrace

Wilson was initially skeptical of AI-driven tools given his background in machine learning, until he saw how Darktrace's Self-Learning AI analyzes communication patterns across the entire organization. Instead of relying on known threats, Darktrace learns how each sender and recipient typically interacts, and flags even subtle deviations.

During the proof of value, Wilson validated Darktrace's detections directly: "Every time I saw a 100 anomaly score, I checked it — and every time it was right."

The results

Darktrace / EMAIL™ immediately stopped the sophisticated phishing and BEC attacks that had been evading Biomerics' layered defenses. Those threats no longer reach employee inboxes. When security events do occur, Darktrace contains them quickly — typically limiting impact to one to three users rather than risking company-wide operational spread.

The result is a fundamental shift for the IT team: less firefighting, more time to focus on strategic improvements, and dramatically reduced operational risk. Darktrace also filters out more email noise than previous solutions, improving employee productivity.

"We've really hammered down one of those holes," Wilson says. "It gives me some availability to go tighten things up in another place. It's been a breath of fresh air."

Darktrace strengthens Biomerics' compliance posture across ISO 27001 and FDA-regulated manufacturing environments, providing unified visibility into email threats across its global footprint. With Darktrace as part of the ActiveAI Security Platform™, Biomerics now has a proactive, scalable foundation that protects its manufacturing operations — and the patients who rely on its medical devices.

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