June 15, 2026

Hola VPN Abuse: From Proxy Traffic to Malware and Cryptomining

Darktrace’s analysis of Hola VPN-related activity across multiple environments reveals how peer-to-peer proxy functionality can enable malware delivery, command-and-control traffic, and cryptomining. Darktrace data highlights consistent patterns, suspicious downloads from rare endpoints, and post-compromise behavior, demonstrating how seemingly benign software can obscure threats and facilitate further malicious activity.

Written by

Min Kim

Cyber Security Analyst

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

Min Kim

Cyber Security Analyst

Jun 2026

Introduction

In enterprise environments, non-compliant software traffic can introduce unexpected exposure by creating unmanaged paths for outbound connectivity. Hola VPN is a notable example because of its peer-to-peer design, which can effectively turn user devices into routing or exit nodes for other parties’ traffic, shifting the risk profile from that of a traditional virtual private network (VPN) to something closer to a distributed proxy.

As a result, the appearance of Hola-related activity, whether from prior installation or unintended background connections, should be treated with caution. Such activity may provide a foothold for malicious behavior, including lateral movement or command-and-control communication.

This blog explores how Hola-associated activity appeared as part of broader patterns of suspicious behavior observed across the Darktrace customer base.

The campaign

In February and March 2026, Darktrace observed similar anomalous activity across multiple customer environments, with affected devices showing consistent behavioral patterns. These included connections to multiple *.hola[.]org endpoints using Hola-related user agents, suggesting interaction with Hola infrastructure rather than isolated or incidental traffic.

Following these connections, affected customer environments showed downloads of suspicious executable files from rare external endpoints 188.241.219[.]55 and 184.241.218[.]111. Both endpoints have been flagged as potentially malicious by open-source intelligence (OSINT) [1][2].

These downloads were conducted using consistent user agents across impacted customers, specifically ‘Hola svc_js_win32/1.249.408’ and ‘Hola svc_js_win32/1.251.389’, suggesting a possible association with Hola-related activity.

Notably, this pattern aligns with recent reporting that, in some cases, Hola distributed an undeclared executable component, me[.]exe, which was later assessed to be a likely Monero-mining binary introduced via a compromised delivery pipeline [3].

Case Study 1

Darktrace first observed a new device on January 19, 2026, within a customer environment based in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. On the same day it appeared on the network, the device communicated with multiple pieces of Hola VPN-linked infrastructure before downloading a binary from a hola[.]org subdomain.

Figure 1: Cyber AI Analyst investigation highlighting Hola VPN service activity potentially associated with subsequent HTTP command-and-control (C2) connections.

Subsequent Darktrace telemetry revealed a recurring pattern of activity from the day the device was first observed through to March 4, 2026. During this period, the device repeatedly issued HTTP GET requests to the URI /bwfile?size=1048576, each returning a 200 OK response, indicating successful file retrieval.

This behavior was accompanied by a POST request to /bwfile, followed by an additional GET request for a significantly larger file at /bwfile?size=26214400, suggesting a deliberate and structured file transfer pattern.

Notably, the binary download activity was not tied to a single static host. Instead, it was observed across multiple URLs that changed over time while remaining within the same hola[.]org domain. This pattern suggests the use of rotating or distributed delivery infrastructure rather than a fixed endpoint.

Figure 2: Variation in URLs over time within the same hola[.]org domain, indicating the use of dynamically changing endpoints.

Across these events, the activity was consistently associated with the user agent Hola svc_js_win32/1.249.408, further linking the traffic to Hola-related service components. Amid these persistent and unusual connections, on February 22, Darktrace observed the device connecting to 188.241.219[.]55/proxy-peer-windows-amd64[.]exe, resulting in the download of an executable file.

Figure 3: File transfer event showing the download of an executable from the rare external endpoint 188.241.219[.]55.

Based on its file hash, the downloaded file was assessed as a likely Trojan downloader [4], with import hash (imphash) values showing similarities to samples linked to Vidar, Rhadamanthys, and Stealc according to OSINT [5]. Overall, this sequence of activity suggests that Hola-related connectivity may have been leveraged as part of a broader malware delivery chain.

Darktrace’s Autonomous Response

Due to the highly unusual activity observed, Darktrace Autonomous Response was triggered by the device’s behavior. However, as the customer deployment was configured in “Human Confirmation” mode, manual approval was required before any action could be taken.

Had the deployment been set to “Fully Autonomous” mode, Darktrace would have automatically:

Blocked connections to the associated ports and external endpoints
Prevented all outgoing network connections from the device
Enforced the device’s established ‘pattern of life’, allowing normal activity to continue while restricting any anomalous behavior

Figure 4: Example of a Darktrace Autonomous Response model highlighting the action that would have been taken, demonstrating how the system identifies anomalous behavior and applies targeted containment measures to restrict suspicious network activity.

Case Study 2

While the first case focused on anomalous activity from a newly observed device, Darktrace also identified cases in which devices had already been communicating with Hola-related endpoints prior to the suspected campaign. This may suggest pre-existing Hola usage within the environment, potentially increasing exposure and creating an avenue for subsequent suspicious activity.

One case involved three devices within a customer network based in the Americas (AMS). In this instance, a different payload was identified: me[.]exe, a potentially malicious cryptocurrency miner also referred to as HolaMonitorService[.]exe [6][7]. The downloads were observed from infrastructure similar to that seen in Case 1, including an IP address within the same 188.241.0.0/16 subnet.

Connections to *.hola[.]org, alongside the use of potential Hola-related user agents consistent with those in Case 1, were also identified, further suggesting a link between the observed activity and Hola-associated infrastructure.

Darktrace observed activity indicative of unusual VPN usage on the first affected device on February 2, followed by telemetry suggesting potential Tor usage. This was later followed by the download of me[.]exe on March 10 from 188.241.218[.]111. Notably, this device was the earliest among the three within the deployment to exhibit the presence of the suspicious executable.

Figure 5: Cyber AI Analyst detection highlighting the download of a suspicious executable from a similar external endpoint in a separate deployment.

On March 5, 2026, the second affected device exhibited a slightly different progression, initiating connections to http-test1[.]hola[.]org using the user agent ‘hola_get’. This activity was followed by the download of me[.]exe from the same endpoint on March 13, consistent with the broader pattern of Hola-related downloads observed across the environment.

Figure 6: Example of Hola VPN-related connectivity observed on the network prior to the suspected campaign, indicating pre-existing usage that may have contributed to subsequent activity.

The final affected device within this customer’s network demonstrated a more limited but related pattern, also downloading me[.]exe on March 17 using the same ‘hola_get’ user agent.

While the earlier Hola VPN usage observed across the deployment may not have been directly related to the suspected malware campaign, it may nonetheless have contributed to reduced visibility. The presence of pre-existing Hola-related traffic could have obscured malicious activity, making it more difficult to distinguish legitimate usage from attacker-driven behavior and, in turn, hindering the timely identification of the emerging compromise.

Darktrace’s Autonomous Response

For this deployment, the customer had their Autonomous Response capability configured in “Fully Autonomous” mode, allowing Darktrace to take action without human intervention. As a result, the system was able to autonomously disrupt the activity as soon as relevant events were identified through model detections.

Figure 7: Darktrace Autonomous Response actions taken against suspicious activity linked to Hola VPN.

Suspected cryptomining activity

As previously noted, some of the observed executable payloads appear to be linked to cryptomining malware. Across a subset of affected customer environments, this assessment was further supported by subsequent device activity consistent with Monero mining. Affected devices established follow-on connections to multiple external endpoints aligned with known mining infrastructure, indicating post-download execution.

Considering the broader sequence of activity, this pattern may point to a wider form of abuse in which legitimate VPN-related traffic is used to mask or facilitate malicious behavior following compromise.

On several devices, the download of executable files, including a newly observed peer[.]exe, was followed by alerts indicative of cryptocurrency mining activity. Mining-related credentials such as ‘x’ were observed using the Minergate protocol to communicate with endpoints within the 89.125.255.0/24 subnet and 188.241.218[.]111, the same endpoint involved in earlier download activity. Additional credentials appeared to reflect device-specific CPU identifiers, for example ‘12th Gen Intel(R) Core (TM) i5-1235U’.

Observed mining methods included login, submit, and job, consistent with active participation in a pool-based mining workflow rather than passive or incidental contact. The login method indicates that the host authenticated to the mining service as a worker, job reflects the assignment of computational tasks, and submit shows completed work being returned to the pool [8]. This sequence suggests that affected devices were actively contributing processing resources as part of an unauthorized distributed mining operation.

The presence of unauthorized cryptominers can lead to degraded system performance and reduced device stability. Beyond the immediate resource impact, such activity often serves as an indicator of a broader compromise rather than an isolated issue. This may increase the risk of further malware deployment, persistence mechanisms, and lateral movement, particularly in environments where the initial intrusion has not been fully contained.

Conclusion

Across affected environments, detections such as unusual VPN usage, connections to Hola infrastructure, anomalous HTTP activity, suspicious file downloads, and subsequent cryptomining behavior were linked into a single, evolving incident narrative. This aggregation provided a clearer view of attack progression, enabling security teams to understand not just isolated alerts, but the full sequence of compromise from initial contact through to post-exploitation.

Ultimately, these activities show that the risk posed by non-compliant software such as Hola VPN can extend far beyond simple policy violations. What began as traffic to Hola-related infrastructure was, in multiple cases, followed by behavior suggesting deliberate misuse, including suspicious executable downloads using Hola-related user agents and, in some instances, evidence of active cryptomining. These were not isolated anomalies, but elements of a broader pattern in which seemingly benign proxy or VPN-related communications may have created a pathway for malicious delivery and unauthorized resource exploitation.

The significance of this activity lies not only in the downloads or mining, but in what it reveals about an attacker’s ability to blend malicious operations into traffic associated with software that may already have a foothold in the environment. When unapproved software operates within an enterprise, it can reduce visibility, blur the distinction between legitimate and malicious traffic, and create opportunities to extend compromise in ways that are persistent and difficult to detect. Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach enables these behavioral distinctions to be identified, regardless of whether the device is new or long established within the network.

Credit to Min Kim (Associate Principal Analyst), Priya Thapa (Senior Cyber Analyst)
Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)

Appendices

References

[1] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ip-address/188.241.219.55

[2] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ip-address/188.241.218.111

[3] https://www.sophos.com/en-us/blog/you-do-surprise-me-exe-an-unexpected-executable-in-hola-browser

[4] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/d275abca286cd75af971d0459fdf1df37c7b19c514abafae5d0b04bf42ccfb45/detection

[5] https://bazaar.abuse.ch/sample/d275abca286cd75af971d0459fdf1df37c7b19c514abafae5d0b04bf42ccfb45/

[6] https://any.run/report/4cdeb5df217764a8b6a20d518b76ccb30cbe623365a13d9dcd40900950f1ed99/de3a756a-3101-4369-8922-52c586c939fb

[7] https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/e3541caf708c075f0bb22fc68b03acd8457fea7cf0732ea935b1eb016d1c7721/community

[8] https://bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/stratum

Darktrace Model Detections

· Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location

· Anomalous File / Multiple EXE from Rare External Locations

· Compromise / Crypto Currency Mining Activity

· Compromise / High Priority Crypto Currency Mining (EM)

· Device / New User Agent

· Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname

· Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Controlled and Model Alert

· Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Alerts Over Time Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Tor Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious Activity Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Pattern of Life Block

· Antigena / Network / External threat / Antigena Suspicious File Block

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

IoC –Type -Description + Confidence

188.241.219[.]55 - IP Address - Malware distribution source

188.241.218[.]111 - IP Address -Malware distribution source

hxxp://188.241.218[.]111:8080/me[.]exe - URI - Malicious payload

hxxp://188.241.219[.]55:9000/proxy-peer-windows-amd64[.]exe - URI - Malicious payload

hxxp://188.241.219[.]55:9000/peer[.]exe - URI - Malicious payload

C8088f3c8bc3542eb1ad78a7cc5306d866c8ac81 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, me[.]exe

b595a6de0f6a18975b29e6f8ebe604956a173478 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, me[.]exe

e9139a2e0839e8b9e5c9787ea936347ae56e5460 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

c2e80073e4cafe757d5643bd8fd45f28ad89bff9 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

695355eceedcdd337d8fcbd35e6a531cda75b847 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

f0b0d8068a1b9ab5d68a8a46842d72b870b292e7 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

a21c8b8cabc7670ea45bc175e185a0f9bfcf4733 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, me[.]exe

0353ca44b9f397d8f492db0b2f7a1d00a9e4406a - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

56824c8a110e35ab303dc27a6c758cd50c36174c - SHA1 - Malicious payload, peer[.]exe

c141fa0fa505fe7f9ad5dd21d9d4d6d411739682 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, peer[.]exe

0417ec988b16f1267065185a6eea98f0bd2e17cd - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

c54f7eaaeb3e0b528cd2584bdcb3a4b13cc0f8a2 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, peer[.]exe

11c78f15fafd53f8cc5a52b828d7cbf2a99e0b09 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, peer[.]exe

0258bf7dbb0123247db29e8799991140bbdbd9bb - SHA1 - Malicious payload, proxy-peer-windows-amd64[.]exe

b46043a06dd9bbd63e4214d5fbc7fd56e1ff0618 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

753afdecd9f5402d004e8e5f768170ae9a468ca5 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

8f533c7cb1524b00f7b0311c2ea8603298d6b2ca - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

3a3bc6a5b4db1a4e961abcb002d26fe9d5e5c349 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

897f70eb41d302b045fcb05ed0693675e778ce57 - SHA1 - Possible malicious payload

6ddd5644809606e3dc1e2cc06059c3f5e6176f85 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, proxy-peer-windows-amd64[.]exe

68a94f7cdcaf8853ea99251c1ecc67ae9b32eba8 - SHA1 - Malicious payload, proxy-peer-windows-amd64[.]exe

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

T1659 -Initial Access, Command and Control -Content Injection

T1588.001 -Resource Development -Malware

T1189 -Initial Access -Drive-by Compromise

T1105 -Command and Control -Ingress Tool Transfer

T1657 -Impact -Financial Theft

T1497.001 -Impact -Compute Hijacking

T1496 -Impact -Resource Hijacking

T1210 -Lateral Movement -Exploitation of Remote Services

T1036.012 -Stealth -Browser Fingerprint

T1071.001 -Command and Control -Web Protocols

Written by

Min Kim

Cyber Security Analyst

Inside the SOC

Written by

Min Kim

Cyber Security Analyst

•

September 2, 2026

Parvatha Ananthakannan

Senior Product Marketing Manager, AI

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

September 22, 2026

Darktrace / SECURE AI: Extending Behavioral Security for the Age of Agentic AI

AI is moving faster than the controls built to secure it

Over 80% of Darktrace’s customers now use generative AI services, and the average organization interacted with five different AI provides in August 2026¹. That level of adoption reflects how quickly AI has become embedded in day-to-day business operations. But as adoption accelerates, so do the opportunities for new forms of exposure that often operate outside traditional security controls. Prompts can expose sensitive information, an over-permissioned agent can turn a routine task into a serious security concern, and an employee using an unsanctioned AI tool to get work done can quietly introduce risk long before the security team is aware of its existence.

Securing AI isn’t a nice-to-have. It's an urgent, board-level requirement for any business that wants AI adoption to be an advantage rather than a liability.

Why traditional security controls fall short

The challenge isn’t a lack of AI security tools, it’s that most security solutions weren’t built for the way AI behaves.

AI systems are adaptive and, by nature, unpredictable. A prompt can be entirely benign in one context and a serious risk in another. An agent's permissions can look reasonable in isolation and dangerous the moment they're combined with what that agent is actually doing. Rule-based controls, built to catch known signatures and static policy violations, simply aren't designed to catch this kind of subtlety. They might be able to tell you what happened, but they can’t tell you if it mattered.

Effective AI security requires something different: a deep understanding of what normal looks like across every human, system, and agent in an environment, so the earliest signs of drift, misuse, or compromise stand out as they emerge.

Behavioral understanding is our foundation

Darktrace isn’t reinventing itself to secure AI. We’re extending what we already do. For over a decade, Darktrace has been built on a single premise – that every organization has its own unique, evolving way of operating, shaped by how its systems, users, and devices behave. Understanding that is the only reliable way to catch what rules and signatures miss. Our Adaptive AI™ continuously learns the distinct behaviors, relationships, and operational patterns of every enterprise it protects, building a Unique Behavioral Profile that no other vendor can replicate. It's how we've spent years interpreting ambiguity, uncovering subtle intent, and spotting drift before it becomes dangerous across networks, cloud, identities, email, OT, and endpoints. AI is a new domain, but behavioral security isn't a new discipline for us.

Introducing Darktrace / SECURE AI

Darktrace / SECURE AI helps organizations embrace AI innovation without losing control of how it is used. Delivered through the Darktrace Behavioral Defense Platform™, it provides visibility into AI activity across employees, agents, and AI systems, helping security teams understand how AI is being used throughout their business.

Darktrace then applies behavioral understanding to that activity, adding the context needed to distinguish routine usage from genuine risk. By understanding the relationships between users, agents, systems, and data, / SECURE AI helps organizations move beyond simply observing AI usage to understanding risk, governing behavior against policy, and enabling AI adoption with confidence. The result is greater oversight, stronger governance, and the ability to confidently accelerate AI innovation without creating unmanaged risk.

Securing your AI ecosystem

AI risk doesn't originate from a single source, and effective AI security can't focus on just one layer of the problem. Organizations need visibility, understanding, and governance across the entire AI ecosystem, from the prompts users submit and the agents they create, to the development environments where AI is built and the unsanctioned tools operating outside approved channels. Here's how Darktrace / SECURE AI helps organizations secure each of these areas.

Shadow AI management

Darktrace / SECURE AI helps security teams discover unsanctioned AI services and track usage trends over time using Darktrace telemetry and supported SASE integrations such as Microsoft Entra Global Secure Access. It also extends visibility to Model Context Protocol (MCP) usage, helping teams understand where AI tools and agents are connecting to external services. Through Darktrace platform integrations, organizations can block unsanctioned AI usage or quarantine affected devices when needed, helping them reduce exposure and guide users toward approved options.

AI prompt analysis

Prompts reveal what users are asking AI to do, what information they are sharing, and the outcomes they are trying to produce. Darktrace / SECURE AI provides visibility into prompts, sessions, and responses across supported platforms, including Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Studio, ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, Salesforce, and AWS Bedrock². Behavioral analysis detects activity such as attempted jailbreaks, sensitive data exposure, and potential indirect prompt injection, while risk scoring helps analysts prioritize the sessions that need attention. Policy Manager maps organizational AI policies against prompt activity and surfaces potential violations, helping teams govern AI use with direct evidence instead of relying on fragmented logs or inferred intent.

AI agent identities and actions

AI agents have their own permissions, roles, relationships, and access to systems and data. Darktrace / SECURE AI brings agent identities together with the users interacting with them, giving security teams visibility into access, sessions, and connections across supported environments. A real-time audit trail helps teams continuously evaluate whether an agent’s activity remains aligned with its intended purpose, so they can identify excessive access or behavioral drift before it becomes a security issue.

AI agent development risk management

Many AI risks are introduced during development, when agents are created, permissions are assigned, and connections to data sources are established. Darktrace / SECURE AI provides visibility across both low-code and high-code environments. In platforms such as AWS Bedrock, teams can examine AI architecture and the agent identities involved in development and deployment. In low-code environments, such as Copilot Studio, they can observe agents as they are created, monitor whether behavior stays aligned with their intended purpose, and connect prompt activity during development with behavior in production. This helps organizations address misconfigurations and excessive permissions before they reach production.

The promise of AI, secured

The question isn't whether to adopt AI, it's whether security teams can enable secure adoption that allows every business to benefit from AI’s potential.

Darktrace / SECURE AI is built to solve this problem – extending a decade of behavioral understanding to the newest, fastest-moving part of the enterprise, using the same principles which already protect people and hybrid infrastructure.

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Darktrace / SECURE AI is generally available now. Discover the product, or get a demo today.

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[related-resource]

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[1] Based on aggregated Darktrace product telemetry across a fleet of ~8,200 observed deployments, measuring generative AI service usage across accounts monitored in August 2026. The 80%+ figure reflects the share of monitored accounts with any generative AI service usage during the same period.

[2] Microsoft, Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Salesforce, and Amazon Bedrock are trademarks of their respective owners.

About the author

Brittany Woodsmall

Senior Product Marketing Manager, AI

Blog

September 17, 2026

The Problem of Re-defining Human Value in the Agentic Age

Newsfeeds are constantly informing us about the rapid escalation of agentic AI systems. These systems move far beyond simple machine-based computations, and the focused, defined and bounded assistance that most AI systems started out as.

The next evolution of AI will harness the agentic properties of orchestration, automation, and heightened value-chains in IT, taking on the burden of workflow management, not just workflow delivery.

In nearly all of these instances, promises are made such as ‘this will free up human time’ or ‘this will allow people to focus on higher-order strategy’. However that message is delivered, one thing is clear: in ceding the orchestration and management of work to increasingly sophisticated AI agents and agentic systems, human value will be elevated to a particular and specific layer: the ability to judge its outputs. As AI takes on more tasks, humans should be able to focus on a higher level of governance; making sure the decisions that AI offers us are ethical, responsible and worthwhile.

But there are two major problems with that approach.

This blog discusses the problem of how Agentic systems are re-shaping how we review information, where we fit in, and when we make decisions. It also discusses the problem of how the increased flow of confident, generated information affects the way we make judgement. This blog considers how human judgement needs to adapt, and how a behavioral defense approach – using techniques pioneered by Darktrace – can help us do that.

The challenge of knowing where human judgement belongs

As we confer more automated decision-making to agentic systems, it might look increasingly less like ‘granting permissions’, and more like ‘surrendering authority’.

The judgement layer for AI-generated work is not a fixed boundary. We have become used to the idea of a ‘human in the loop’ (HITL) and, historically, relationships between humans and IT systems were reasonably clear and bounded. Computer and software systems were programmed to carry out certain tasks or automated functions, and humans could control the gates and decision points where actions were undertaken. Even across highly complex computational workflows, human interaction was a controllable node within the process; we were able to configure and regulate. But in the agentic age, where that human interaction sits, and what it can influence shifts every time AI systems are granted autonomy.

This leads us to the first problem: if humans are moving themselves (or are being moved) into the ‘judgement’ part of the value chain, exactly where and when do we exercise that judgement?

Humans are no longer the sole shepherds of computer-based or software-controlled outputs. We are at times at least one step further (and slower) behind the new agentic shepherds. We might also be blind to what they are doing. Not only might we be removed and blind to the actions of our AI shepherds, but with the challenge of unknown, unapproved AI systems operating beyond our control, humans might not even know that our work is being shepherded by an AI at all. Simply put, with the advent of greater levels of autonomy and orchestration, humans are at risk of not even knowing where to apply our newly-extended powers of strategic judgement.

Shadow AI – the use of unapproved AI systems or processes – is a growing threat to the role of effective governance and oversight. Shadow AI isn't just the AI you can't see. Its the AI you already know about being used in an unapproved way. The ability to generate effective oversight of the AI systems you use (or that are used on your behalf) will be increasingly important to ensure that human judgement in the AI value chain is effective, and deliberately placed.

The problem of what makes good judgement

The second problem lies in how flawed human judgement can be. Humans are historically, notoriously, and, sometimes dangerously, unreliable when it comes to exercising judgement. Humans are prone to the worst kinds of bias, the seduction of malign influence, and the sometimes-overwhelming urge to succeed. AI has long had a known flaw of operating with sycophancy, providing outputs that tend to agree with or flatter the human user. But as AI grows ever more effective, there is a risk of both hyper-enablement (where humans increasingly and knowingly enable AI despite potential harm), as well as the greater risk of suggestion. Both of these aspects could skew the newly-elevated input of human judgement.

Imagine a highly competent AI system that has just orchestrated and managed a dizzying array of processes and workflows. The AI is designed to present the human decision-maker with recommendations; based on analysis, comparison and other programmed factors. This is where the human judgement layer is enabled. But what if that judgement is summarily diffused by an AI-based recommendation that emulates the decision, provides plausible but unattractive alternatives, then suggests (or, worse, directs) the human end-user to take a particular course of action.

The risk here is that you are given a recommendation, tailored to your preferences (which the AI has learned, or which you have divulged), and which appears to make perfect sense. It appears to be a well-weighted recommendation, with sound arguments that tap into our inherent biases or inclinations so that a specific decision-path is followed. With the growth of agentic systems specifically designed to match user profiles (from Cowork agents to ‘digital twin’ models), the likelihood of agentic influence could badly skew human judgement or, at the least, devalue the proposition that humans are taking a higher-layer of strategic control over AI-based decisions.

If AI convincingly recommends something that may be problematic, it can be difficult to discern both accurate data, and the context required to make the right judgement.

Given the two problems described above, the job of exercising valuable human judgement in the agentic age can draw down to these two questions:

When should humans intervene in the agentic process?
How can we make the best possible judgement calls?

What humans contribute that AI cannot

For all the flaws that make human judgement unreliable, people have the edge over even the most sophisticated and powerful AI systems when it comes to issues such as ethics and social context. An AI system can, with startling granularity, rank the value of adopting a new business proposal: offering predictive metrics on costs, returns, market value, time-to-deliver operations, conformance with legal registers, etc. But it can’t tell if the business proposal is ethically sound, or if the business venture will potentially affect groups outside of the analyzed proposal. It can’t tell you if the CEO has a ‘bad feeling’ about this effort. It can’t tell you if this is the right thing to do.

The ability to add social context, balance complex interpersonal dynamics, understand nuance, and to go beyond what seems economically reasonable is where human judgement can add value.

Human judgement is difficult to encapsulate in metrics. And the way we train our development may need to adapt too. Rather than building up a gradual, experiential knowledge base, we should think about training the skill of judgement itself; especially for an agentic age.

How behavioral security strengthens AI governance

If this all feels like a vicious circle (‘I need AI help to make good judgements’ / ‘AI can twist what I need to judge’) it needn’t be. The key to this is having a defense-in-depth approach, with tools that can actually help.

This is precisely where behavioral security becomes important. The complex and nuanced way that humans exercise judgement is often rooted in our ability to recognize behavior that doesn't look right. We may not always be able to articulate it immediately, but we can often identify when an action, recommendation, or outcome feels inconsistent with the context around it. As AI systems take on more responsibility across the decision chain, preserving that ability to recognize meaningful deviations becomes increasingly important.

Darktrace’s / SECURE AI is designed to do exactly that. It applies behavioral security to AI ecosystems, helping organizations understand how people, AI tools, identities, and agents interact across the business. By learning the patterns of normal AI usage and surfacing activity that deviates from those patterns, it provides security teams with the context needed to investigate risk, understand unusual behavior, and make informed governance decisions. Rather than relying solely on predefined rules or assumptions, this behavioral understanding helps organizations distinguish between expected AI activity and behavior that warrants closer scrutiny.

This matters because we are already in an era of information overload. If humans are expected to elevate their value through strategic judgement, the ability to do this without being overwhelmed by data (good or bad) will be critical.

We need the ability to discern when we're being misled by AI, and whether our judgement calls are being made on the basis of accurate, contextual information. Darktrace / SECURE AI provides that additional layer of defensive security for activity we cannot easily see. Whether it is suspected Shadow AI or skewed recommendations, the net result is a protected organization, where users can more effectively use AI to make positive judgements.

For those where that judgement is a critical skill (both individuals, as well as those working in security teams), improving our metacognition - the ability to understand information in a broader context - will supercharge the value of human judgement. When those judgements are grounded in context rather than assumptions we have better information to make sound decisions.

Conclusion

Human judgement is a skill that is honed over time and experience. Darktrace’s / SECURE AI employs the same principles, but at machine-speed. Rather than influencing or directing, Darktrace / SECURE AI offers AI-enabled assurance; providing human-based judgement with the right context to make a balanced decision.

What we judge can be valued by the legitimacy of its outputs. For AI, those outputs are valued on the speed and accuracy of the information provided. Increasingly for humans, the value of our outputs will be based on the validity of our judgement, and how we justify our decisions in ways that engineer confidence.

Humans often know more than we can express, while AI is prone to expressing more than it truly understands. Humans can bridge the context AI often fails to appreciate. When that judgement is supported by relevant, impartial AI systems, this is the future space where good AI governance will be exercised.

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Discover Darktrace / SECURE AI.

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About the author

Jason Lusted

AI Governance Advisor

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