May 28, 2024

Stemming the Citrix Bleed Vulnerability with Darktrace’s ActiveAI Security Platform

This blog delves into Darktrace’s investigation into the exploitation of the Citrix Bleed vulnerability on the network of a customer in late 2023. Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI ensured the customer was well equipped to track the post-compromise activity and identify affected devices.

Written by

Vivek Rajan

Cyber 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

Vivek Rajan

Cyber Analyst

May 2024

What is Citrix Bleed?

Since August 2023, cyber threat actors have been actively exploiting one of the most significant critical vulnerabilities disclosed in recent years: Citrix Bleed. Citrix Bleed, also known as CVE-2023-4966, remained undiscovered and even unpatched for several months, resulting in a wide range of security incidents across business and government sectors [1].

How does Citrix Bleed vulnerability work?

The vulnerability, which impacts the Citrix Netscaler Gateway and Netscaler ADC products, allows for outside parties to hijack legitimate user sessions, thereby bypassing password and multifactor authentication (MFA) requirements.

When used as a means of initial network access, the vulnerability has resulted in the exfiltration of sensitive data, as in the case of Xfinity, and even the deployment of ransomware variants including Lockbit [2]. Although Citrix has released a patch to address the vulnerability, slow patching procedures and the widespread use of these products has resulted in the continuing exploitation of Citrix Bleed into 2024 [3].

How Does Darktrace Handle Citrix Bleed?

Darktrace has demonstrated its proficiency in handling the exploitation of Citrix Bleed since it was disclosed back in 2023; its anomaly-based approach allows it to efficiently identify and inhibit post-exploitation activity as soon as it surfaces. Rather than relying upon traditional rules and signatures, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI enables it to understand the subtle deviations in a device’s behavior that would indicate an emerging compromise, thus allowing it to detect anomalous activity related to the exploitation of Citrix Bleed.

In late 2023, Darktrace identified an instance of Citrix Bleed exploitation on a customer network. As this customer had subscribed to the Proactive Threat Notification (PTN) service, the suspicious network activity surrounding the compromise was escalated to Darktrace’s Security Operation Center (SOC) for triage and investigation by Darktrace Analysts, who then alerted the customer’s security team to the incident.

Darktrace’s Coverage

Initial Access and Beaconing of Citrix Bleed

Darktrace’s initial detection of indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with the exploitation of Citrix Bleed actually came a few days prior to the SOC alert, with unusual external connectivity observed from a critical server. The suspicious connection in question, a SSH connection to the rare external IP 168.100.9[.]137, lasted several hours and utilized the Windows PuTTY client. Darktrace also identified an additional suspicious IP, namely 45.134.26[.]2, attempting to contact the server. Both rare endpoints had been linked with the exploitation of the Citrix Bleed vulnerability by multiple open-source intelligence (OSINT) vendors [4] [5].

Figure 1: Darktrace model alert highlighting an affected device making an unusual SSH connection to 168.100.9[.]137 via port 22.

As Darktrace is designed to identify network-level anomalies, rather than monitor edge infrastructure, the initial exploitation via the typical HTTP buffer overflow associated with this vulnerability fell outside the scope of Darktrace’s visibility. However, the aforementioned suspicious connectivity likely constituted initial access and beaconing activity following the successful exploitation of Citrix Bleed.

Command and Control (C2) and Payload Download

Around the same time, Darktrace also detected other devices on the customer’s network conducting external connectivity to various endpoints associated with remote management and IT services, including Action1, ScreenConnect and Fixme IT. Additionally, Darktrace observed devices downloading suspicious executable files, including “tniwinagent.exe”, which is associated with the tool Total Network Inventory. While this tool is typically used for auditing and inventory management purposes, it could also be leveraged by attackers for the purpose of lateral movement.

Defense Evasion

In the days surrounding this compromise, Darktrace observed multiple devices engaging in potential defense evasion tactics using the ScreenConnect and Fixme IT services. Although ScreenConnect is a legitimate remote management tool, it has also been used by threat actors to carry out C2 communication [6]. ScreenConnect itself was the subject of a separate critical vulnerability which Darktrace investigated in early 2024. Meanwhile, CISA observed that domains associated with Fixme It (“fixme[.]it”) have been used by threat actors attempting to exploit the Citrix Bleed vulnerability [7].

Reconnaissance and Lateral Movement

A few days after the detection of the initial beaconing communication, Darktrace identified several devices on the customer’s network carrying out reconnaissance and lateral movement activity. This included SMB writes of “PSEXESVC.exe”, network scanning, DCE-RPC binds of numerous internal devices to IPC$ shares and the transfer of compromise-related tools. It was at this point that Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI deemed the activity to be likely indicative of an ongoing compromise and several Enhanced Monitoring models alerted, triggering the aforementioned PTNs and investigation by Darktrace’s SOC.

Darktrace observed a server on the network initiating a wide range of connections to more than 600 internal IPs across several critical ports, suggesting port scanning, as well as conducting unexpected DCE-RPC service control (svcctl) activity on multiple internal devices, amongst them domain controllers. Additionally, several binds to server service (srvsvc) and security account manager (samr) endpoints via IPC$ shares on destination devices were detected, indicating further reconnaissance activity. The querying of these endpoints was also observed through RPC commands to enumerate services running on the device, as well as Security Account Manager (SAM) accounts.

Darktrace also identified devices performing SMB writes of the WinRAR data compression tool, in what likely represented preparation for the compression of data prior to data exfiltration. Further SMB file writes were observed around this time including PSEXESVC.exe, which was ultimately used by attackers to conduct remote code execution, and one device was observed making widespread failed NTLM authentication attempts on the network, indicating NTLM brute-forcing. Darktrace observed several devices using administrative credentials to carry out the above activity.

In addition to the transfer of tools and executables via SMB, Darktrace also identified numerous devices deleting files through SMB around this time. In one example, an MSI file associated with the patch management and remediation service, Action1, was deleted by an attacker. This legitimate security tool, if leveraged by attackers, could be used to uncover additional vulnerabilities on target networks.

A server on the customer’s network was also observed writing the file “m.exe” to multiple internal devices. OSINT investigation into the executable indicated that it could be a malicious tool used to prevent antivirus programs from launching or running on a network [8].

Impact and Data Exfiltration

Following the initial steps of the breach chain, Darktrace observed numerous devices on the customer’s network engaging in data exfiltration and impact events, resulting in additional PTN alerts and a SOC investigation into data egress. Specifically, two servers on the network proceeded to read and download large volumes of data via SMB from multiple internal devices over the course of a few hours. These hosts sent large outbound volumes of data to MEGA file storage sites using TLS/SSL over port 443. Darktrace also identified the use of additional file storage services during this exfiltration event, including 4sync, file[.]io, and easyupload[.]io. In total the threat actor exfiltrated over 8.5 GB of data from the customer’s network.

Figure 2: Darktrace Cyber AI Analyst investigation highlighting the details of a data exfiltration attempt.

Finally, Darktrace detected a user account within the customer’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environment conducting several suspicious Office365 and AzureAD actions from a rare IP for the network, including uncommon file reads, creations and the deletion of a large number of files.

Unfortunately for the customer in this case, Darktrace RESPOND™ was not enabled on the network and the post-exploitation activity was able to progress until the customer was made aware of the attack by Darktrace’s SOC team. Had RESPOND been active and configured in autonomous response mode at the time of the attack, it would have been able to promptly contain the post-exploitation activity by blocking external connections, shutting down any C2 activity and preventing the download of suspicious files, blocking incoming traffic, and enforcing a learned ‘pattern of life’ on offending devices.

Conclusion

Given the widespread use of Netscaler Gateway and Netscaler ADC, Citrix Bleed remains an impactful and potentially disruptive vulnerability that will likely continue to affect organizations who fail to address affected assets. In this instance, Darktrace demonstrated its ability to track and inhibit malicious activity stemming from Citrix Bleed exploitation, enabling the customer to identify affected devices and enact their own remediation.

Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection allows it to identify such post-exploitation activity resulting from the exploitation of a vulnerability, regardless of whether it is a known CVE or a zero-day threat. Unlike traditional security tools that rely on existing threat intelligence and rules and signatures, Darktrace’s ability to identify the subtle deviations in a compromised device’s behavior gives it a unique advantage when it comes to identifying emerging threats.

Credit to Vivek Rajan, Cyber Analyst, Adam Potter, Cyber Analyst

Appendices

Darktrace Model Coverage

Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

Device / ICMP Address Scan

Device / Possible SMB/NTLM Reconnaissance

Device / Network Scan

Device / SMB Lateral Movement

Device / Possible SMB/NTLM Brute Force

Device / Suspicious Network Scan Activity

User / New Admin Credentials on Server

Anomalous File / Internal::Unusual Internal EXE File Transfer

Compliance / SMB Drive Write

Device / New or Unusual Remote Command Execution

Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Control

Anomalous Connection / Rare WinRM Incoming

Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin SMB Session

Device / Unauthorised Device

User / New Admin Credentials on Server

Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server

Device / Long Agent Connection to New Endpoint

Anomalous Connection / Multiple Connections to New External TCP Port

Device / New or Uncommon SMB Named Pipe

Device / Multiple Lateral Movement Model Breaches

Device / Large Number of Model Breaches

Compliance / Remote Management Tool On Server

Device / Anomalous RDP Followed By Multiple Model Breaches

Device / SMB Session Brute Force (Admin)

Device / New User Agent

Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections

Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data Transfer

Unusual Activity / Enhanced Unusual External Data Transfer

Device / Increased External Connectivity

Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data to New Endpoints

Anomalous Connection / Data Sent to Rare Domain

Anomalous Connection / Uncommon 1 GiB Outbound

Anomalous Connection / Active Remote Desktop Tunnel

Anomalous Server Activity / Anomalous External Activity from Critical Network Device

Compliance / Possible Unencrypted Password File On Server

Anomalous Connection / Suspicious Read Write Ratio and Rare External

Device / Reverse DNS Sweep]

Unusual Activity / Possible RPC Recon Activity

Anomalous File / Internal::Executable Uploaded to DC

Compliance / SMB Version 1 Usage

Darktrace AI Analyst Incidents

Scanning of Multiple Devices

Suspicious Remote Service Control Activity

SMB Writes of Suspicious Files to Multiple Devices

Possible SSL Command and Control to Multiple Devices

Extensive Suspicious DCE-RPC Activity

Suspicious DCE-RPC Activity

Internal Downloads and External Uploads

Unusual External Data Transfer

Unusual External Data Transfer to Multiple Related Endpoints

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Technique – Tactic – ID – Sub technique of

Network Scanning – Reconnaissance - T1595 - T1595.002

Valid Accounts – Defense Evasion, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Initial Access – T1078 – N/A

Remote Access Software – Command and Control – T1219 – N/A

Lateral Tool Transfer – Lateral Movement – T1570 – N/A

Data Transfers – Exfiltration – T1567 – T1567.002

Compressed Data – Exfiltration – T1030 – N/A

NTLM Brute Force – Brute Force – T1110 - T1110.001

AntiVirus Deflection – T1553 - NA

Ingress Tool Transfer - COMMAND AND CONTROL - T1105 - NA

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

204.155.149[.]37 – IP – Possible Malicious Endpoint

199.80.53[.]177 – IP – Possible Malicious Endpoint

168.100.9[.]137 – IP – Malicious Endpoint

45.134.26[.]2 – IP – Malicious Endpoint

13.35.147[.]18 – IP – Likely Malicious Endpoint

13.248.193[.]251 – IP – Possible Malicious Endpoint

76.223.1[.]166 – IP – Possible Malicious Endpoint

179.60.147[.]10 – IP – Likely Malicious Endpoint

185.220.101[.]25 – IP – Likely Malicious Endpoint

141.255.167[.]250 – IP – Malicious Endpoint

106.71.177[.]68 – IP – Possible Malicious Endpoint

cat2.hbwrapper[.]com – Hostname – Likely Malicious Endpoint

aj1090[.]online – Hostname – Likely Malicious Endpoint

dc535[.]4sync[.]com – Hostname – Likely Malicious Endpoint

204.155.149[.]140 – IP - Likely Malicious Endpoint

204.155.149[.]132 – IP - Likely Malicious Endpoint

204.155.145[.]52 – IP - Likely Malicious Endpoint

204.155.145[.]49 – IP - Likely Malicious Endpoint

References

Written by

Vivek Rajan

Cyber Analyst

Inside the SOC

Written by

Vivek Rajan

Cyber Analyst

•

October 29, 2026

Daniel Levy

Threat Hunting Data Scientist

•

October 22, 2026

Nathaniel Jones

SVP, Global Threat Intelligence

Watch the NIS2 Webinar

Blog

November 3, 2026

From One Alert to a Wider Campaign: Uncovering Novel Threats Through Behavioral Analysis

Key Findings

Darktrace’s Threat Research team is exploring a new method to identify malicious campaigns by correlating similar anomalous activity across its customer fleet.
The method uses unsupervised clustering to identify shared behavioral patterns across multiple customer deployments without relying on prior indicators of compromise (IoCs).
The approach identified shared infrastructure across dozens of customers, with activity linked to the likely POPA botnet.
A second cluster identified anomalous activity associated with Monero cryptocurrency mining.

‍

How does Darktrace conduct threat research?

The Darktrace Threat Research team aims to identify malicious campaign activity affecting multiple customers. By their nature, these campaigns will lead to shared behavioral patterns across multiple victims.

In this piece, we describe a method for identifying malicious campaign activity that uses this simple observation as a guiding principle. We begin by outlining a few key facts about the modern threat landscape and why behavioral detection is necessary to meet the challenges it presents. We then explore how fleet-wide behavioral detections can be leveraged using the principle above to systematically identify multi-deployment campaigns impacting the Darktrace customer fleet. Finally, we demonstrate that this research is not purely theoretical, using real examples of campaign activity detected through this novel approach.

Shifting to a behavioral-focused approach

The modern era of cyber-defense necessitates detection capabilities beyond traditional signature-based methods. Technologies such as antivirus signatures, hash-based malware identification, and IP blocklists have historically been successful in defending against known threats. However, they are easily circumvented by attackers and inherently limited in defending against the novel attack techniques that today's threat landscape is producing.

Recent breakthroughs in AI represent a transformational risk multiplier that cannot be ignored. AI systems do not merely execute existing attacks at machine speed; there are signs they can also synthesize novel tradecraft [1], increasing the likelihood that defenders will encounter attack patterns that have never previously been observed. Meanwhile vulnerability disclosures continue to accelerate. More than 48,000 CVEs were published in 2025, and published statistics to date indicate that 2026 is already on track to significantly exceed that figure [2]. While multiple factors may contribute to vulnerability discovery, AI is seen as a key factor in this rapid growth. Organizations should expect a growing proportion of malicious activity to fall outside the scope of detections that rely solely on prior knowledge of known threats.

By design, Darktrace’s behavioral and anomaly-focused detection capabilities are well-suited to this testing landscape. With a focus on detecting unknown and unexpected activity that deviates from the baseline of “normal” behavior, detection of CVE exploitation without prior knowledge of the vulnerability and before public disclosure, for example, is achievable [3][4].

Darktrace’s diverse customer base benefits from a further layer of protection: working with only deidentified alert metadata, our threat researchers hunt proactively across the fleet. Beyond the level of the individual customer, there is a second, larger vantage to be leveraged.

Darktrace data provides unique insight into the unexpected behavioral patterns that occur across its customer fleet. What can we see if we look at this fleet-wide telemetry and hunt for systematic behavioral campaigns that impact our customer base?

Correlating across the customer base

At the deployment level, Darktrace focuses on whether activity is unusual in the context of an organization's normal behavior, but as we zoom out and look at these alerts at the fleet level, the problem fundamentally changes . We are no longer seeking anomalies in largely normal data; we are seeking systematic patterns within data already known to be anomalous. An isolated behavior anomaly may be notable for a single customer; the same fingerprint across dozens is a signal of a structured campaign. Hunting for such campaigns and sharing our findings are key areas of focus for Darktrace’s Threat Research team. In this spirit, Darktrace is actively exploring a a new research approach that leverages deidentified alert metadata to increase campaign detection ability.

This approach is based on the premise that an expert human analyst presented with a set of alerts will identify likely related activity by assessing whether the metadata fields indicate a relationship. For example, two connections to a rare endpoint that exhibits naming structure that is likely from a single algorithm are a strong indicator, as is the use of an unusual port carrying a given protocol (e.g. port 6000 for SSL). Darktrace’s approach to campaign detection encodes this expert human judgement process through deterministic embedding functions that obtain reproducible vector representations of alert data. Unsupervised clustering is then applied to these vector representations to obtain groups of alerts that describe semantically similar alert data across multiple customers. These clusters therefore represent similar anomalous activity that has occurred across multiple customers. In other words, these clusters are candidates for malicious campaign activity.

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Figure 1: Layers of AI-based analysis provided through Darktrace products and cross-customer correlation.

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Case study 1 – unusual connections to shared underlying infrastructure

In one recent case, the clustering produced several tight groups of alerts spanning dozens of customers. Each group centered on a single domain whose subdomains were algorithmically generated (e.g. s01699, s1736, s91). Examined side by side, these clusters shared an unmistakable behavioral shape: each involved a domain with a clear naming pattern (e.g. s016841786.net-echo[.]com, s1670.pixellog[.]io, s217.pixellog[.]io) , with connections over SSL on the unusual port 6000 to servers hosted by non-mainstream providers (e.g. OVH, Hetzner, GTHost, Leaseweb), rather than generally expected content-delivery networks.

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Figure 2: An example model alert triggering on unusual outbound connections and data transfer to s1670.pixellog[.]io.

‍

Closer inspection revealed that the same subdomain label appeared under different domains (e.g. s1786.net-echo[.]com and s1786.pixellog[.]io). Following this lead, Darktrace’s threat researchers pivoted across the customer base and found numerous distinct subdomain labels reused under more than one registered domain. In several cases, the same label resolved to the same IP across different domains (e.g. s1704 under both pixellog[.]io and net-echo[.]com → 148.113.222[.]244; s01684 → 15.235.67[.]95), suggesting the use of ephemeral subdomain infrastructure in an attempt to avoid signature-based defense techniques.

This example demonstrates how multi-deployment data can uncover shared infrastructure that may be difficult to identify at the individual deployment level alone. In particular, the presented method facilitated this discovery by producing coherent, tight clusters of geometrically similar vector embeddings of malicious activity from large-scale fleet data, which could then be presented to a researcher for further investigation. This activity highlighted across the Darktrace customer base was ultimately linked to likely POPA botnet activity through use of open-source intelligence (OSINT) [5].

Case Study 2 – anomalous user agent and txt URI

A second example shows the method surfacing a single, self-contained cluster. The clustering was not given any indicators to look for; instead, it grouped devices that shared an unusual combination of features. On inspection, that shared consisted of:

- unusual user agent (tes)

- specific request path (/md5_GIP.txt)

- uncommon destination port (83)

- hostname impersonating Google (matching regular expression ^www\.google\.com\.[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.fast-dns-host\.com$)

Treating these shared features as IoCs, Darktrace’s threat researchers then pivoted to an exploration across the customer base to investigate the full breadth of the campaign. This search identified further commonalities; additional domains which shared the same IP as the domain family highlighted in the cluster, as well as evidence of cryptocurrency mining on affected devices. Additional OSINT research also aligned with these findings, linking the discovered payloads and infrastructure to Monero cryptocurrency mining [6].

Conclusion

The method outlined in this blog is under active development, with ongoing technical refinement providing opportunities to further enhance its capabilities. While the capability continues to mature, this approach to threat hunting leverages the powerful vantage point of fleetwide telemetry across a diverse customer base to help protect Darktrace customers. This method allows campaigns that at the deployment level appear as isolated alerts to be seen at their true scale and spread. It enables proactive fleet-wide analysis without prior IoCs to identify campaigns impacting Darktrace customers.

This is possible because of what the method is built on: the atomic unit is the Darktrace alert, a signal that encodes years of cyber expertise, while the multi-deployment nature of the method allows organizations to indirectly benefit from findings from other networks through shared intelligence by Darktrace’s Threat Research team.

Credit to Daniel Levy (Threat Hunting Data Scientist), Paul Jennings (Principal Cyber Analyst), Emma Foulger (Global Head, Threat Operations)

Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)

References

1. https://www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/incident-report-unsanctioned-agent-behaviour-during-cyber-testing

2. https://www.cvefind.com/en/cve-statistic-date.html

3. https://www.darktrace.com/blog/security-after-signatures-operating-in-a-world-of-pre-cve-disclosure-exploitation-collapsed-trust-boundaries-and-autonomous-systems

4. https://www.darktrace.com/blog/pre-cve-threat-detection-10-examples-identifying-malicious-activity-prior-to-public-disclosure-of-a-vulnerability

5. https://github.com/synthient/public-research/blob/main/2026/06/popa/Popa.md

6. https://www.deepwatch.com/blog/pirated-adobe-photoshop-2023-installers-lead-to-monero-cryptocurrency-mining/

About the author

Daniel Levy

Threat Hunting Data Scientist

Blog

AI

November 2, 2026

PHP Vulnerabilities, ARTEX and the Growing Role of AI in Cyber Attacks

The disclosure of CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 placed immediate pressure on organizations running PHP. Both vulnerabilities can allow unauthenticated remote code execution, including in products and appliances where PHP is embedded, and updates depend on third-party vendors [1].

Early guidance focused on patching internet-facing systems and monitoring for behavior associated with successful exploitation, including unexpected command execution, Webroot changes and outbound connections from PHP servers.

Darktrace observed widespread scanning across monitored environments involving hundreds of distinct source IP addresses that public reporting has associated with activity targeting the PHP vulnerabilities. The volume of scanning was significantly greater than the evidence available for successful exploitation. For analysts, that distinction is important. Scanning demonstrates interest in exposed infrastructure; establishing compromise requires evidence of subsequent behavior on the targeted system, including command execution, file modification or unexpected outbound communication.

PHP is not an isolated example. Imperva subsequently demonstrated remote code execution against a vulnerable Node.js build through malicious Brotli data, reproducing execution through compressed HTTP responses and configured request parsers. The same inputs were rejected by the patched runtime. Imperva linked its Node2Shell and PHP2Shell research to the increasing speed of vulnerability discovery and exploit development. [2]

While Darktrace has not observed direct evidence of CVE-2026-109618 or CVE-2026-109619 exploitation, on October 21^st we observed a six-month high in detections consistent with zero-day exploitation activity, representing a 64% increase compared to historic data. This increase has not been confirmed as related to the PHP vulnerabilities. Darktrace’s behavioral approach is designed to detect anomalous activity without relying solely on rules written for a specific exploit. Comparable increases were observed around the Log4j disclosure and other globally significant vulnerability disclosures.

AI-assisted vulnerability research

The PHP disclosure arrives as AI systems have become more capable at vulnerability research [3]. OpenAI launched Daybreak in June 2026, combining GPT-5.5-Cyber, Codex Security and partnerships with security researchers and software maintainers. OpenAI says its models have been applied to discovering and generating patches for vulnerabilities in browsers, network infrastructure, FreeBSD and the Linux kernel. Darktrace joined the OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program in June to explore how OpenAI's cyber capabilities could be integrated within Darktrace products and services [4][10].

OpenAI reported in August that Codex Security Cloud had analyzed more than 30 million commits across more than 30,000 codebases. According to OpenAI, Cloudflare uses models accessed through Daybreak to investigate customer-authorized code and combines findings with live traffic and security signals to assess whether affected routes are active or receiving suspicious traffic, with proposed mitigations and patches remaining subject to customer review [5][6].

Faster discovery still leaves defenders with the work of locating affected software, testing fixes and completing remediation. The PHP case shows that gap clearly, particularly when vulnerable runtimes are embedded inside other products.

Enterprise agents as an attack surface

Darktrace Signal Labs has also examined how a trusted enterprise agent could be abused after an attacker has already obtained access to an environment. In a controlled simulation, researchers demonstrated that, in that post-compromise scenario, the Claude platform’s memory stores feature could be abused to establish a live C2 channel between an external operator and internal Claude Code agents. The external operator was able to dynamically assign network discovery, credential access, and data exfiltration tasks to the agents via this C2 channel. Detection of the agents’ activities relied on the correlation of process creation and network traffic activity from agent harness processes, alongside behavioral analysis to identify deviations from expected behavior. Darktrace has not claimed it observed this memory-store command-and-control technique in operational attacks [7].

AI-assisted attacks in Japan

Evidence from Japan indicates AI being used for vulnerability scanning and attacks outside controlled research. On 21 October, JPCERT/CC published findings from an investigation into recent unauthorized access incidents affecting organizations in Japan. JPCERT/CC states that it confirmed attackers had used AI to scan for known vulnerabilities and conduct attacks through APIs. According to JPCERT/CC, its examination of attack infrastructure found evidence of Android application analysis, API discovery and testing for weaknesses including server-side request forgery, and the infrastructure also targeted services intended for users outside Japan [8].

JPCERT/CC does not identify ARTEX by name in that publication. The named ARTEX attribution comes from separate investigations, including Microsoft's analysis of Storm-0940.

AI in offensive operations

Microsoft describes ARTEX as an open-source, multi-agent penetration-testing system capable of automating activity with limited human interaction. Microsoft reported that Storm-0940, which it assesses to be a China state-aligned actor active since 2021, used ARTEX against hundreds of organizations, and Microsoft attributed the ConnectWise supply-chain compromise [9].

Microsoft observed ARTEX accelerating scanning, reconnaissance, password spraying and OAuth application abuse. Several ARTEX-driven operations reached privileged cloud access less than three hours after initial targeting. Following the ConnectWise compromise, Storm-0940 attempted to authenticate to more than 2,250 tenants at rates of up to 2,900 attempts per minute [9].

Darktrace Threat Research found activity in its own telemetry involving infrastructure later associated with the campaign. On 13 October, Darktrace recorded failed authentication activity involving 144.172.64[.]128, one of the addresses Microsoft later identified as performing sign-ins and Microsoft Graph activity in ConnectWise customer environments. Darktrace analysis identified 65 failed authentication attempts in around 20 minutes.

*Figure 1: Darktrace Advanced Search showing failed authentication events involving 144.172.64[.]128 on 13 October 2026, (customer-identifying information redacted).*

The telemetry establishes repeated failed authentication from infrastructure later associated with the campaign. It does not establish ARTEX execution or successful compromise. At the time of observation, Microsoft's later attribution was unavailable. Analysts therefore had the behavior itself: repeated failed authentication from the same source over a short period, together with any related identity, application or network activity inside the environment.

Microsoft documented a wider password-spray campaign against 327 accounts across eight organizations between 10 and 14 October. It recorded more than 151,000 failed logons, including more than 111,000 on 11 October, but no successful authentication, token issuance, Graph call or directory change from that campaign. Microsoft also reported that most Storm-0940 targeting was unsuccessful [9].

Where the actor progressed beyond authentication, Microsoft observed service-principal sign-ins followed by Graph and directory operations. Activity included reconnaissance, application credential changes and attempts to modify privileges. Microsoft recommends correlating service-principal sign-ins with Graph activity, directory changes and resource access [9].

Behavior before attribution

The PHP and ARTEX cases begin with different information. PHP defenders knew which software required urgent remediation but initially had limited information about exploitation. Process execution, file modification and outbound communication could still provide evidence of compromise.

The PHP and ARTEX observations also illustrate the difference between volume and impact. Darktrace observed broad scanning around the PHP disclosure, while the ARTEX-associated infrastructure produced concentrated authentication activity. Neither observation independently demonstrates compromise and in each case examining the behavior that follows the initial interaction is the investigative clue.

The Darktrace ARTEX-related observation began with authentication behavior. Microsoft publicly attributed the source infrastructure eight days later. That attribution added context, but it did not change what had originally been recorded in the environment.

AI is now present at several points in this cycle. Daybreak applies models to vulnerability discovery and remediation. Darktrace Signal Labs demonstrated how a trusted enterprise agent could be co-opted in a controlled environment. JPCERT/CC confirmed AI-assisted vulnerability scanning and API attacks in recent incidents. Microsoft documented ARTEX being used by Storm-0940 in active operations [4][7][8][9].

Microsoft's findings also show why scale and impact must be assessed separately. One ARTEX-associated campaign produced more than 151,000 failed logons without successful access, while other operations reached privileged cloud access in less than three hours. Security teams have to distinguish high-volume attempts from activity that progresses through authentication, privilege changes and resource access.

The evidence required to assess these cases remains familiar: authentication records, process execution, application and directory changes, file activity and network communication. AI can increase the rate at which those behaviors occur. Defenders still need to establish their sequence and impact.

Credit to Emma Foulger, Sam Lister, Dylan Evans, Moishe Tajtelbaum

References

[1] NCSC-NL, php2shell vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619), 21 October 2026. https://github.com/NCSC-NL/php2shell

[2] Imperva, https://www.imperva.com/blog/node2shell-from-brotli-data-to-remote-code-execution/

[3] Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, https://www.csa.gov.sg/alerts-and-advisories/alerts/al-2026-151/

[4] OpenAI, Daybreak: Tools for securing every organization in the world, 22 June 2026. https://openai.com/index/daybreak-securing-the-world/

[5] OpenAI Developers, Scaling cyber defenders with Daybreak, 21 August 2026. https://developers.openai.com/blog/scaling-cyber-defenders-with-daybreak

[6] OpenAI, Cloudflare links vulnerability discovery to defense with OpenAI, 21 October 2026. https://openai.com/index/cloudflare-cyber/

[7] Darktrace Signal Labs, Shared Memories as a Covert C2 Channel, draft research supplied for review.

[8] JPCERT/CC, Recent AI-Assisted Cyber Attacks in Japan: Investigating Attack Infrastructure and Techniques, 21 October 2026. https://blogs.jpcert.or.jp/en/2026/10/web_api_attacks.html

[9] Microsoft Security Research and Microsoft Threat Intelligence, AI-driven, large-scale nation-state campaign using ARTEX enables supply chain compromise, 21 October 2026. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2026/10/21/storm-0940-uses-artex-agentic-ai-connectwise-supply-chain-compromise/

[10] Darktrace, Advancing the Use of Frontier AI in Cybersecurity: Darktrace Joins the OpenAI Daybreak Cyber Partner Program to Explore Defensive AI Integrations, 22 June 2026. https://www.darktrace.com/blog/advancing-the-use-of-frontier-ai-in-cybersecurity-darktrace-joins-the-openai-daybreak-cyber-partner-program-to-explore-defensive-ai-integrations

About the author

Nathaniel Jones

SVP, Global Threat Intelligence

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Check out this article by Darktrace: Stemming the Citrix Bleed Vulnerability with Darktrace’s ActiveAI Security Platform

Stemming the Citrix Bleed Vulnerability with Darktrace’s ActiveAI Security Platform

What is Citrix Bleed?

How does Citrix Bleed vulnerability work?

How Does Darktrace Handle Citrix Bleed?

Darktrace’s Coverage

Initial Access and Beaconing of Citrix Bleed

Command and Control (C2) and Payload Download

Defense Evasion

Reconnaissance and Lateral Movement

Impact and Data Exfiltration

Conclusion

Appendices

Darktrace Model Coverage

Darktrace AI Analyst Incidents

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

References

From One Alert to a Wider Campaign: Uncovering Novel Threats Through Behavioral Analysis

PHP Vulnerabilities, ARTEX and the Growing Role of AI in Cyber Attacks

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Detecting Rogue Agent Behavior in the Enterprise

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November 3, 2026

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Key Findings

How does Darktrace conduct threat research?

Shifting to a behavioral-focused approach

Correlating across the customer base

Case study 1 – unusual connections to shared underlying infrastructure

Case Study 2 – anomalous user agent and txt URI

Conclusion

References

Blog

AI

November 2, 2026

PHP Vulnerabilities, ARTEX and the Growing Role of AI in Cyber Attacks

AI-assisted vulnerability research

Enterprise agents as an attack surface

AI-assisted attacks in Japan

AI in offensive operations

Behavior before attribution

References