February 20, 2020

Lessons Learned from a Sodinokibi Ransomware Attack

Gain insights into a targeted Sodinokibi ransomware attack and learn how to better prepare your organization for potential cyber threats.

Written by

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

Inside the SOC

Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.

Written by

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

Feb 2020

Introduction

Last week, Darktrace detected a targeted Sodinokibi ransomware attack during a 4-week trial with a mid-sized company.

This blog post will go through every stage of the attack lifecycle and detail the attacker’s techniques, tools and procedures used, and how Darktrace detected the attack.

The Sodinokibi group is an innovative threat-actor that is sometimes referred to as a ‘double-threat’, due to their ability to run targeted attacks using ransomware while simultaneously exfiltrating their victim’s data. This enables them to threaten to make the victim’s data publicly available if the ransom is not paid.

While Darktrace’s AI was able to identify the attack in real time as it was emerging, unfortunately the security team didn’t have eyes on the technology and was unable to action the alerts — nor was Antigena set in active mode, which would have slowed down and contained the threat instantaneously.

Timeline

The timeline below provides a rough overview of the major attack phases. Most of the attack took place over the course of a week, with the majority of activity distributed over the last three days.

Technical analysis

Darktrace detected two main devices being hit by the attack: an internet-facing RDP server (‘RDP server’) and a Domain Controller (‘DC’), that also acts as a SMB file server.

In previous attacks, Sodinokibi has used host-level encryption for ransomware activity where the encryption takes place on the compromised host itself — in contrast to network-level encryption where the bulk of the ransomware activity takes place over network protocols such as SMB.

Initial compromise

Over several days, the victim’s external-facing RDP server was receiving successful RDP connections from a rare external IP address located in Ukraine.

Shortly before the initial reconnaissance started, Darktrace saw another RDP connection coming into the RDP server with the same RDP account as seen before. This connection lasted for almost an hour.

It is highly likely that the RDP credential used in this attack had been compromised prior to the attack, either via common brute-force methods, credential stuffing attacks, or phishing.

Thanks to Darktrace’s Deep-Packet Inspection, we can clearly see the connection and all related information.

Suspicious RDP connection information:

Time: 2020-02-10 16:57:06 UTC
Source: 46.150.70[.]86 (Ukraine)
Destination: 192.168.X.X
Destination Port: 64347
Protocol: RDP
Cookie: [REDACTED]
Duration: 00h41m40s
Data out: 8.44 MB
Data in: 1.86 MB

Darktrace detects incoming RDP connections from IP addresses that usually do not connect to the organization.

Attack tools download

Approximately 45 minutes after the suspicious RDP connection from Ukraine, the RDP server connected to the popular file sharing platform, Megaupload, and downloaded close to 300MB from there.

Darktrace’s AI recognized that neither this server, nor its automatically detected peer group, nor, in fact, anyone else on the network commonly utilized Megaupload — and therefore instantly detected this as anomalous behavior, and flagged it as unusual.

As well as the full hostname and actual IP used for the download, Megaupload is 100% rare for this organization.

Later on, we will see over 40GB being uploaded to Megaupload. This initial download of 300MB however is likely additional tooling and C2 implants downloaded by the threat-actor into the victim’s environment.

Internal reconnaissance

Only 3 minutes after the download from Megaupload onto the RDP server, Darktrace alerted on the RDP server doing an anomalous network scan:

The RDP server scanned 9 other internal devices on the same subnet on 7 unique ports: 21, 80, 139, 445, 3389, 4899, 8080  . Anybody with some offensive security know-how will recognize most of these ports as default ports one would scan for in a Windows environment for lateral movement. Since this RDP server does not usually conduct network scans, Darktrace again identified this activity as highly anomalous.

Later on, we see the threat-actor do more network scanning. They become bolder and use more generic scans — one of them showing that they are using Nmap with a default user agent:

Additional Command and Control traffic

While the initial Command and Control traffic was most likely using predominantly RDP, the threat-actor now wanted to establish more persistence and create more resilient channels for C2.

Shortly after concluding the initial network scans (ca. 19:17 on 10th February 2020), the RDP server starts communicating with unusual external services that are unique and unusual for the victim’s environment.

Communications to Reddcoin

Again, nobody else is using Reddcoin on the network. The combination of application protocol and external port is extremely unusual for the network as well.

The communications also went to the Reddcoin API, indicating the installation of a software agent rather than manual communications. This was detected as Reddcoin was not only rare for the network, but also ‘young’ — i.e. this particular external destination had never been seen to be contacted before on the network until 25 minutes before.

Communications to the Reddcoin API

Communications to Exceptionless[.]io

As we can see, the communications to exceptionalness[.]io were done in a beaconing manner, using a Let’s Encrypt certificate, being rare for the network and using an unusual JA3 client hash. All of this indicates the presence of new software on the device, shortly after the threat-actor downloaded their 300MB of tooling.

While most of the above network activity started directly after the threat-actor dropped their tooling on the RDP server, the exact purpose of interfacing with Reddcoin and Exceptionless is unclear. The attacker seems to favor off-the-shelf tooling (Megaupload, Nmap, …) so they might use these services for C2 or telemetry-gathering purposes.

This concluded most of the activity on February 10.

More Command and Control traffic

Why would an attacker do this? Surely using all this C2 at the same time is much noisier than just using 1 or 2 channels?

Another significant burst of activity was observed on February 12 and 13.

The RDP server started making a lot of highly anomalous and rare connections to external destinations. It is inconclusive if all of the below services, IPs, and domains were used for C2 purposes only, but they are linked with high-confidence to the attacker’s activities:

HTTP beaconing to vkmuz[.]net
Significant amount of Tor usage
RDP connections to 198-0-244-153-static.hfc.comcastbusiness[.]net over non-standard RDP port 29348
RDP connections to 92.119.160[.]60 using an administrative account (geo-located in Russia)
Continued connections to Megaupload
Continued SSL beaconing to Exceptionless[.]io
Continued connections to api.reddcoin[.]com
SSL beaconing to freevpn[.]zone
HTTP beaconing to 31.41.116[.]201 to /index.php using a new User Agent
Unusual SSL connections to aj1713[.]online
Connections to Pastebin
SSL beaconing to www.itjx3no[.]com using an unusual JA3 client hash
SSL beaconing to safe-proxy[.]com
SSL connection to westchange[.]top without prior DNS hostname lookups (likely machine-driven)

What is significant here is the diversity in (potential) C2 channels: Tor, RDP going to dynamic ISP addresses, VPN solutions and possibly custom / customized off-the-shelf implants (the DGA-looking domains and HTTP to IP addresses to /index.php).

Why would an attacker do this? Surely using all this C2 at the same time is much noisier than just using 1 or 2 channels?

One answer might be that the attacker cared much more about short-term resilience than about stealth. As the overall attack in the network took less than 7 days, with a majority of the activity taking place over 2.5 days, this makes sense. Another possibility might be that various individuals were involved in parallel during this attack — maybe one attacker prefers the comfort of RDP sessions for hacking while another is more skilled and uses a particular post-exploitation framework.

The overall modus operandi in this financially-motivated attack is much more smash-and-grab than in the stealthy, espionage-related incidents observed in Advanced Persistent Threat campaigns (APT).

Data exfiltration

The DC uploaded around 40GB of data to Megaupload over the course of 24 hours.

While all of the above activity was seen on the RDP server (acting as the initial beach-head), the following data exfiltration activity was observed on a Domain Controller (DC) on the same subnet as the RDP server.

The DC uploaded around 40GB of data to Megaupload over the course of 24 hours.

Darktrace detected this data exfiltration while it was in progress — never did the DC (or any similar devices) upload similar amounts of data to the internet. Neither did any client nor server in the victim’s environment use Megaupload:

Ransom notes

Finally, Darktrace observed unusual files being accessed on internal SMB shares on February 13. These files appear to be ransom notes — they follow a similar, randomly-generated naming convention as other victims of the Sodinokibi group have reported:

413x0h8l-readme.txt
4omxa93-readme.txt

Conclusion and observations

The threat-actor seems to be using mostly off-the-shelf tooling which makes attribution harder — while also making detection more difficult.

This attack is representative of many of the current ransomware attacks: financially motivated, fast-acting, and targeted.

The threat-actor seems to be using mostly off-the-shelf tooling (RDP, Nmap, Mega, VPN solutions) which makes attribution harder — while also making detection more difficult. Using this kind of tooling often allows to blend in with regular admin activity — only once anomaly detection is used can this kind of activity be detected.

How can you spot the one anomalous outbound RDP connection amongst the thousands of regular RDP connections leaving your environment? How do you know when the use of Megaupload is malicious — compared to your users’ normal use of it? This is where the power of Darktrace’s self-learning AI comes into play.

Darktrace detected every stage of the visible attack lifecycle without using any threat intelligence or any static signatures.

The graphics below show an overview of detections on both compromised devices. The compromised devices were the highest-scoring assets for the network — even a level 1 analyst with limited previous exposure to Darktrace could detect such an in-progress attack in real time.

RDP Server

Some of the detections on the RDP server include:

Compliance / File Storage / Mega — using Megaupload in an unusual way
Device / Network Scan — detecting unusual network scans
Anomalous Connection / Application Protocol on Uncommon Port — detecting the use of protocols on unusual ports
Device / New Failed External Connections — detecting unusual failing C2
Compromise / Unusual Connections to Let’s Encrypt — detecting potential C2 over SSL using Let’s Encrypt
Compromise / Beacon to Young Endpoint — detecting C2 to new external endpoints for the network
Device / Attack and Recon Tools — detecting known offensive security tools like Nmap
Compromise / Tor Usage — detecting unusual Tor usage
Compromise / SSL Beaconing to Rare Destination — detecting generic SSL C2
Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination — detecting generic HTTP C2
Device / Long Agent Connection to New Endpoint — detecting unusual services on a device
Anomalous Connection / Outbound RDP to Unusual Port — detecting unusual RDP C2

Some of the detections on the DC include:

Anomalous Activity / Anomalous External Activity from Critical Device — detecting unusual behaviour on dcs
Compliance / File storage / Mega — using Megaupload in an unusual way
Anomalous Connection / Data Sent to New External Device — data exfiltration to unusual locations
Anomalous Connection / Uncommon 1GB Outbound — large amounts of data leaving to unusual destinations
Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server — likely C2 to unusual endpoint on the internet

‍

Written by

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

Inside the SOC

Written by

Max Heinemeyer

Global Field CISO

Product Marketing Manager, OT Security & Compliance

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

Email

September 30, 2025

Out of Character: Detecting Vendor Compromise and Trusted Relationship Abuse with Darktrace

What is Vendor Email Compromise?

Vendor Email Compromise (VEC) refers to an attack where actors breach a third-party provider to exploit their access, relationships, or systems for malicious purposes. The initially compromised entities are often the target’s existing partners, though this can extend to any organization or individual the target is likely to trust.

It sits at the intersection of supply chain attacks and business email compromise (BEC), blending technical exploitation with trust-based deception. Attackers often infiltrate existing conversations, leveraging AI to mimic tone and avoid common spelling and grammar pitfalls. Malicious content is typically hosted on otherwise reputable file sharing platforms, meaning any shared links initially seem harmless.

While techniques to achieve initial access may have evolved, the goals remain familiar. Threat actors harvest credentials, launch subsequent phishing campaigns, attempt to redirect invoice payments for financial gain, and exfiltrate sensitive corporate data.

Why traditional defenses fall short

These subtle and sophisticated email attacks pose unique challenges for defenders. Few busy people would treat an ongoing conversation with a trusted contact with the same level of suspicion as an email from the CEO requesting ‘URGENT ASSISTANCE!’ Unfortunately, many traditional secure email gateways (SEGs) struggle with this too. Detecting an out-of-character email, when it does not obviously appear out of character, is a complex challenge. It’s hardly surprising, then, that 83% of organizations have experienced a security incident involving third-party vendors [1].

This article explores how Darktrace detected four different vendor compromise campaigns for a single customer, within a two-week period in 2025. Darktrace / EMAIL successfully identified the subtle indicators that these seemingly benign emails from trusted senders were, in fact, malicious. Due to the configuration of Darktrace / EMAIL in this customer’s environment, it was unable to take action against the malicious emails. However, if fully enabled to take Autonomous Response, it would have held all offending emails identified.

How does Darktrace detect vendor compromise?

The answer lies at the core of how Darktrace operates: anomaly detection. Rather than relying on known malicious rules or signatures, Darktrace learns what ‘normal’ looks like for an environment, then looks for anomalies across a wide range of metrics. Despite the resourcefulness of the threat actors involved in this case, Darktrace identified many anomalies across these campaigns.

Different campaigns, common traits

A wide variety of approaches was observed. Individuals, shared mailboxes and external contractors were all targeted. Two emails originated from compromised current vendors, while two came from unknown compromised organizations - one in an associated industry. The sender organizations were either familiar or, at the very least, professional in appearance, with no unusual alphanumeric strings or suspicious top-level domains (TLDs). Subject line, such as “New Approved Statement From [REDACTED]” and “[REDACTED] - Proposal Document” appeared unremarkable and were not designed to provoke heightened emotions like typical social engineering or BEC attempts.

All emails had been given a Microsoft Spam Confidence Level of 1, indicating Microsoft did not consider them to be spam or malicious [2]. They also passed authentication checks (including SPF, and in some cases DKIM and DMARC), meaning they appeared to originate from an authentic source for the sender domain and had not been tampered with in transit.

All observed phishing emails contained a link hosted on a legitimate and commonly used file-sharing site. These sites were often convincingly themed, frequently featuring the name of a trusted vendor either on the page or within the URL, to appear authentic and avoid raising suspicion. However, these links served only as the initial step in a more complex, multi-stage phishing process.

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Figure 1: A legitimate file sharing site used in phishing emails to host a secondary malicious link.

Figure 2: Another example of a legitimate file sharing endpoint sent in a phishing email and used to host a malicious link.

If followed, the recipient would be redirected, sometimes via CAPTCHA, to fake Microsoft login pages designed to capturing credentials, namely http://pub-ac94c05b39aa4f75ad1df88d384932b8.r2[.]dev/offline[.]html and https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws[.]com/s3cure0line-0365cql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2ml0qin/s3cccql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2%26l0qn[.]html#.

The latter made use of homoglyphs to deceive the user, with a link referencing ‘s3cure0line’, rather than ‘secureonline’. Post-incident investigation using open-source intelligence (OSINT) confirmed that the domains were linked to malicious phishing endpoints [3] [4].

Figure 3: Fake Microsoft login page designed to harvest credentials.

Figure 4: Phishing kit with likely AI-generated image, designed to harvest user credentials. The URL uses ‘s3cure0line’ instead of ‘secureonline’, a subtle misspelling intended to deceive users.

Darktrace Anomaly Detection

Some senders were unknown to the network, with no previous outbound or inbound emails. Some had sent the email to multiple undisclosed recipients using BCC, an unusual behavior for a new sender.

Where the sender organization was an existing vendor, Darktrace recognized out-of-character behavior, in this case it was the first time a link to a particular file-sharing site had been shared. Often the links themselves exhibited anomalies, either being unusually prominent or hidden altogether - masked by text or a clickable image.

Crucially, Darktrace / EMAIL is able to identify malicious links at the time of processing the emails, without needing to visit the URLs or analyze the destination endpoints, meaning even the most convincing phishing pages cannot evade detection – meaning even the most convincing phishing emails cannot evade detection. This sets it apart from many competitors who rely on crawling the endpoints present in emails. This, among other things, risks disruption to user experience, such as unsubscribing them from emails, for instance.

Darktrace was also able to determine that the malicious emails originated from a compromised mailbox, using a series of behavioral and contextual metrics to make the identification. Upon analysis of the emails, Darktrace autonomously assigned several contextual tags to highlight their concerning elements, indicating that the messages contained phishing links, were likely sent from a compromised account, and originated from a known correspondent exhibiting out-of-character behavior.

A summary of the anomalous email, confirming that it contained a highly suspicious link. — Figure 5: Tags assigned to offending emails by Darktrace / EMAIL.

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Figure 6: A summary of the anomalous email, confirming that it contained a highly suspicious link.

Out-of-character behavior caught in real-time

In another customer environment around the same time Darktrace / EMAIL detected multiple emails with carefully crafted, contextually appropriate subject lines sent from an established correspondent being sent to 30 different recipients. In many cases, the attacker hijacked existing threads and inserted their malicious emails into an ongoing conversation in an effort to blend in and avoid detection. As in the previous, the attacker leveraged a well-known service, this time ClickFunnels, to host a document containing another malicious link. Once again, they were assigned a Microsoft Spam Confidence Level of 1, indicating that they were not considered malicious.

Figure 7: The legitimate ClickFunnels page used to host a malicious phishing link.

This time, however, the customer had Darktrace / EMAIL fully enabled to take Autonomous Response against suspicious emails. As a result, when Darktrace detected the out-of-character behavior, specifically, the sharing of a link to a previously unused file-sharing domain, and identified the likely malicious intent of the message, it held the email, preventing it from reaching recipients’ inboxes and effectively shutting down the attack.

Figure 8: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of malicious emails inserted into an existing thread.*

*To preserve anonymity, all real customer names, email addresses, and other identifying details have been redacted and replaced with fictitious placeholders.

Legitimate messages in the conversation were assigned an Anomaly Score of 0, while the newly inserted malicious emails identified and were flagged with the maximum score of 100.

Key takeaways for defenders

Phishing remains big business, and as the landscape evolves, today’s campaigns often look very different from earlier versions. As with network-based attacks, threat actors are increasingly leveraging legitimate tools and exploiting trusted relationships to carry out their malicious goals, often staying under the radar of security teams and traditional email defenses.

As attackers continue to exploit trusted relationships between organizations and their third-party associates, security teams must remain vigilant to unexpected or suspicious email activity. Protecting the digital estate requires an email solution capable of identifying malicious characteristics, even when they originate from otherwise trusted senders.

Credit to Jennifer Beckett (Cyber Analyst), Patrick Anjos (Senior Cyber Analyst), Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead), Kiri Addison (Director of Product)

Appendices

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence

- http://pub-ac94c05b39aa4f75ad1df88d384932b8.r2[.]dev/offline[.]html#p – fake Microsoft login page

- https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws[.]com/s3cure0line-0365cql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2ml0qin/s3cccql0.19db86c3-b2b9-44cc-b339-36da233a3be2%26l0qn[.]html# - link to domain used in homoglyph attack

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique – Sub-Technique

Initial Access - Phishing – (T1566)

References

1. https://gitnux.org/third-party-risk-statistics/

2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-office-365/anti-spam-spam-confidence-level-scl-about

3. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/5df9aae8f78445a590f674d7b64c69630c1473c294ce5337d73732c03ab7fca2/detection

4. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/695d0d173d1bd4755eb79952704e3f2f2b87d1a08e2ec660b98a4cc65f6b2577/details

^{The content provided in this blog is published by Darktrace for general informational purposes only and reflects our understanding of cybersecurity topics, trends, incidents, and developments at the time of publication. While we strive to ensure accuracy and relevance, the information is provided “as is” without any representations or warranties, express or implied. Darktrace makes no guarantees regarding the completeness, accuracy, reliability, or timeliness of any information presented and expressly disclaims all warranties.}

^{Nothing in this blog constitutes legal, technical, or professional advice, and readers should consult qualified professionals before acting on any information contained herein. Any references to third-party organizations, technologies, threat actors, or incidents are for informational purposes only and do not imply affiliation, endorsement, or recommendation.}

^{Darktrace, its affiliates, employees, or agents shall not be held liable for any loss, damage, or harm arising from the use of or reliance on the information in this blog.}

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About the author

Blog

OT

October 1, 2025

Announcing Unified OT Security with Dedicated OT Workflows, Segmentation-Aware Risk Insights, and Next-Gen Endpoint Visibility for Industrial Teams

The challenge of convergence without clarity

Convergence is no longer a roadmap idea, it is the daily reality for industrial security teams. As Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) environments merge, the line between a cyber incident and an operational disruption grows increasingly hard to define. A misconfigured firewall rule can lead to downtime. A protocol misuse might look like a glitch. And when a pump stalls but nothing appears in the Security Operations Center (SOC) dashboard, teams are left asking: is this operational or is this a threat?

The lack of shared context slows down response, creates friction between SOC analysts and plant engineers, and leaves organizations vulnerable at exactly the points where IT and OT converge. Defenders need more than alerts, they need clarity that both sides can trust.

The breakthrough with Darktrace / OT

This latest Darktrace / OT release was built to deliver exactly that. It introduces shared context between Security, IT, and OT operations, helping reduce friction and close the security gaps at the intersection of these domains.

With a dedicated dashboard built for operations teams, extended visibility into endpoints for new forms of detection and CVE collection, expanded protocol coverage, and smarter risk modeling aligned to segmentation policies, teams can now operate from a shared source of truth. These enhancements are not just incremental upgrades, they are foundational improvements designed to bring clarity, efficiency, and trust to converged environments.

A dashboard built for OT engineers

The new Operational Overview provides OT engineers with a workspace designed for them, not for SOC analysts. It brings asset management, risk insights and operational alerts into one place. Engineers can now see activity like firmware changes, controller reprograms or the sudden appearance of a new workstation on the network, providing a tailored view for critical insights and productivity gains without navigating IT-centric workflows. Each device view is now enriched with cross-linked intelligence, make, model, firmware version and the roles inferred by Self-Learning AI, making it easier to understand how each asset behaves, what function it serves, and where it fits within the broader industrial process. By suppressing IT-centric noise, the dashboard highlights only the anomalies that matter to operations, accelerating triage, enabling smoother IT/OT collaboration, and reducing time to root cause without jumping between tools.

This is usability with purpose, a view that matches OT workflows and accelerates response.

Figure 1: The Operational Overview provides an intuitive dashboard summarizing all OT Assets, Alerts, and Risk.

Full-spectrum coverage across endpoints, sensors and protocols

The release also extends visibility into areas that have traditionally been blind spots. Engineering workstations, Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), contractor laptops and field devices are often the entry points for attackers, yet the hardest to monitor.

Darktrace introduces Network Endpoint eXtended Telemetry (NEXT) for OT, a lightweight collector built for segmented and resource-constrained environments. NEXT for OT uses Endpoint sensors to capture localized network, and now process-level telemetry, placing it in context alongside other network and asset data to:

Identify vulnerabilities and OS data, which is leveraged by OT Risk Management for risk scoring and patching prioritization, removing the need for third-party CVE collection.

Surface novel threats using Self-Learning AI that standalone Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) would miss.

Extend Cyber AI Analyst investigations through to the endpoint root cause.

NEXT is part of our existing cSensor endpoint agent, can be deployed standalone or alongside existing EDR tools, and allows capabilities to be enabled or disabled depending on factors such as security or OT team objectives and resource utilization.

Figure 2: Darktrace / OT delivers CVE patch priority insights by combining threat intelligence with extended network and endpoint telemetry

The family of Darktrace Endpoint sensors also receive a boost in deployment flexibility, with on-prem server-based setups, as well as a Windows driver tailored for zero-trust and high-security environments.

Protocol coverage has been extended where it matters most. Darktrace now performs protocol analysis of a wider range of GE and Mitsubishi protocols, giving operators real-time visibility into commands and state changes on Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), robots and controllers. Backed by Self-Learning AI, this inspection does more than parse traffic, it understands what normal looks like and flags deviations that signal risk.

Integrated risk and governance workflows

Security data is only valuable when it drives action. Darktrace / OT delivers risk insights that go beyond patching, helping teams take meaningful steps even when remediation isn't possible. Risk is assessed not just by CVE presence, but by how network segmentation, firewall policies, and attack path logic neutralize or contain real-world exposure. This approach empowers defenders to deprioritize low-impact vulnerabilities and focus effort where risk truly exists. Building on the foundation introduced in release 6.3, such as KEV enrichment, endpoint OS data, and exploit mapping, this release introduces new integrations that bring Darktrace / OT intelligence directly into governance workflows.

Fortinet FortiGate firewall ingestion feeds segmentation rules into attack path modeling, revealing real exposure when policies fail and closing feeds into patching prioritization based on a policy to CVE exposure assessment.

ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB) sync ensures asset intelligence stays current across governance platforms, eliminating manual inventory work.

Risk modeling has also been made more operationally relevant. Scores are now contextualized by exploitability, asset criticality, firewall policy, and segmentation posture. Patch recommendations are modeled in terms of safety, uptime and compliance rather than just Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) numbers. And importantly, risk is prioritized across the Purdue Model, giving defenders visibility into whether vulnerabilities remain isolated to IT or extend into OT-critical layers.

Figure 3: Attack Path Modeling based on NetFlow and network topology reveals high risk points of IT/OT convergence.

The real-world impact for defenders

In today’s environments, attackers move fluidly between IT and OT. Without unified visibility and shared context, incidents cascade faster than teams can respond.

With this release, Darktrace / OT changes that reality. The Operational Overview gives Engineers a dashboard they can use daily, tailored to their workflows. SOC analysts can seamlessly investigate telemetry across endpoints, sensors and protocols that were once blind spots. Operators gain transparency into PLCs and controllers. Governance teams benefit from automated integrations with platforms like Fortinet and ServiceNow. And all stakeholders work from risk models that reflect what truly matters: safety, uptime and compliance.

This release is not about creating more alerts. It is about providing more clarity. By unifying context across IT and OT, Darktrace / OT enables defenders to see more, understand more and act faster.

Because in environments where safety and uptime are non-negotiable, clarity is what matters most.

Join us for our live event where we will discuss these product innovations in greater detail

About the author

Pallavi Singh

Product Marketing Manager, OT Security & Compliance

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Lessons Learned from a Sodinokibi Ransomware Attack

Introduction

Timeline

Technical analysis

Initial compromise

Attack tools download

Internal reconnaissance

Additional Command and Control traffic

More Command and Control traffic

Data exfiltration

Ransom notes

Conclusion and observations

‍

Out of Character: Detecting Vendor Compromise and Trusted Relationship Abuse with Darktrace

Announcing Unified OT Security with Dedicated OT Workflows, Segmentation-Aware Risk Insights, and Next-Gen Endpoint Visibility for Industrial Teams

Enjoying the blog?

More in this series

Blog

Email

September 30, 2025

Out of Character: Detecting Vendor Compromise and Trusted Relationship Abuse with Darktrace

What is Vendor Email Compromise?

Why traditional defenses fall short

How does Darktrace detect vendor compromise?

Different campaigns, common traits

Darktrace Anomaly Detection

Out-of-character behavior caught in real-time

Key takeaways for defenders

Appendices

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique – Sub-Technique

References

Blog

OT

October 1, 2025

Announcing Unified OT Security with Dedicated OT Workflows, Segmentation-Aware Risk Insights, and Next-Gen Endpoint Visibility for Industrial Teams

The challenge of convergence without clarity

The breakthrough with Darktrace / OT

A dashboard built for OT engineers

Full-spectrum coverage across endpoints, sensors and protocols

Integrated risk and governance workflows

The real-world impact for defenders

Join us for our live event where we will discuss these product innovations in greater detail