August 7, 2024

How Darktrace’s AI Applies a Zero-Trust Mentality within Critical Infrastructure Supply Chains

Darktrace prevented a Critical National Infrastructure organization from falling victim to a SharePoint phishing attack originating from one of its trusted suppliers. This blog discusses common perceptions of zero-trust in email security, how AI that uses anomaly-based threat detection embodies core zero-trust principles and the relevance of this approach to securing CNI bodies with complex but interdependent supply chains from Cloud account compromise.

Written by

Nicole Wong

Cyber Security Analyst

Inside the SOC

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

Written by

Nicole Wong

Cyber Security Analyst

Aug 2024

Note: In order to name anonymity, real organization names have been replaced, all names used in this blog are fictitious.

What are critical national infrastructure sectors?

Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sectors encompass of assets, systems, and networks essential to the functioning of society. Any disruption or destruction of these sectors could have wide-reaching and potentially disastrous effects on a country’s economy, security and/or healthcare services [1].

Cyber risks across Transportation Systems sector

Transportation Systems is one such CNI sector comprising of interconnected networks of fixed and mobile assets managed by both public and private operators. These systems are highly interdependent with other CNI sectors too. As such, the digital technologies this sector relies on – such as positioning and tracking, signaling, communications, industrial system controls, and data and business management – are often interconnected through different networks and remote access terminals. This interconnectedness creates multiple entry points that need to be security across the supply.

Digital transformation has swept through CNI sectors in recent years, including Transportation Systems. These organizations are now increasingly dependent on third-party and cloud providers for data storage and transmission, making their supply chains vulnerable to exploitation by malicious actors [2].

The exploitation of legitimate and popular cloud services mirrors the well-known “living-off-the-land” techniques, which are not being adapted to the cloud along with the resources they support. In one recent case previously discussed by Darktrace, for example, a phishing attack attempted to abuse Dropbox to deliver malicious payloads.

Zero-Trust within CNI Sectors

One recommended approach to secure an organization’s supply chain and cloud environments is the implementation of zero-trust strategies, which remove inherent trust within the network [3] [4]. The principle of “never trust, always verify” is widely recognized as an architectural design, with 63% of organizations surveyed by Gartner reportedly implementing a zero-trust strategy, but in most cases to less than 50% of their environments [5]

Although this figure reflects the reality and challenge of balancing operations and security, demands from the threat landscape and supply chain risks mean that organizations must adopt zero-trust principles in areas not traditionally considered part of network architecture, such as email and cloud environments.

Email is often the primary entry point for cyber-attacks with Business Email Compromise (BEC) being a major threat to CNI organizations. However, the application of zero-trust principles to secure email environments is still not well understood. Common misconceptions include:

“Positively identifying known and trusted senders” – Maintaining a list of “known and trusted senders” contradicts the zero-trust model, which assumes that no entity is inherently trustworthy.
“Using DMARC, DKIM and SPF” – While these protocols offer some protection, they are often insufficient on their own, as they can be bypassed and do not protect against email account takeovers. Research published from Darktrace’s last two threat reports consistently shows that at least 60% of phishing emails detected by Darktrace had bypassed Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) [6] [7].
“Mapping transaction flows between internal and external users to determine what access is required/not required” – Although this aligns with the principles of least privilege, it is too static for today’s dynamic supply chains and evolving digital infrastructure. This approach also suggests the existence of “trusted” access routes into a network.

Attack Overview

In July 2024, Darktrace / EMAIL™ detected and contained a sophisticated phishing attack leveraging Microsoft SharePoint. This attack exploited the trusted relationship between a Darktrace customer in the public transport sector and a compromised supplier. Traditional methods, such as those detailed above, would likely have failed to defend against such an advanced threat. However, Darktrace’s behavioral analysis and zero-trust approach to email security allowed it to successfully identify and neutralize the attack, preventing any potential disruption.

Initial Intrusion Attempt

The observed phishing attack by Darktrace would suggest that the customer’s supplier was targeted by a similar campaign beforehand. This initial breach likely allowed the attacker to use the now compromised account as a vector to compromise additional accounts and networks.

On July 9, Darktrace / EMAIL identified a significant spike in inbound emails from “supplier@engineeringcompany[.]com”. The emails appeared to be legitimate notifications sent via SharePoint and contained a file named “Payment Applications Docs”.

Figure 1: Email correspondence in the weeks around the phishing attack. The sender is an established correspondent with ongoing communications prior to and after the attack, however there is a significant spike in incoming emails on the day of the attack.

This reflects a common technique in malicious social engineering attempts, where references to payment are used to draw attention and prompt a response. Darktrace observed a large number of recipients within the organization receiving the same file, suggesting that the motive was likely credential harvesting rather than financial gain. Financially motivated attacks typically require a more targeted, ‘under-the-radar’ approach to be successful.

These phishing emails were able to bypass the customer’s email gateways as they were sent from a trusted and authoritative source, SharePoint, and utilized an email address with which the customer had previously corresponded. The compromised account was likely whitelisted by traditional email security tools that rely on SPF, DKIM, and DMAC, allowing the malicious emails to evade detection.

Autonomous Response

Darktrace / EMAIL analysis of the unusual characteristics of the phishing email in relation to the supplier’s typical behaviour, despite the email originating from a legitimate SharePoint notification. — Figure 2: Darktrace / EMAIL analysis of the unusual characteristics of the phishing email in relation to the supplier’s typical behavior, despite the email originating from a legitimate SharePoint notification.

However, Darktrace / EMAIL did not use these static rules to automatically trust the email. Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI detected the following anomalies:

Although the sender was known, it was not normal for the supplier to share files with the customer via SharePoint.
The supplier initiated an unusually large number of file shares in a short period of time, indicating potential spam activity.
The SharePoint link had wide access permissions, which is unusual for a sensitive payment document legitimately shared between established contacts.

Darktrace understood that the email activity constituted a significant deviation in expected behavior between the sender and customer, regardless of the known sender and use of a legitimate filesharing platform like SharePoint.

As a result, Darktrace took action to hold more than 100 malicious emails connected to the phishing attack, preventing them from landing in recipient inboxes in the first instance. By taking a behavioral approach to securing customer email environments, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI embodies the principles of zero trust, assessing each interaction in real-time against a user’s dynamic baseline rather than relying on static and often inaccurate rules to define trust.

Conclusion

Cloud services, such as SharePoint, offer significant advantages to the transportation sector by streamlining data exchange with supply chain partners and facilitating access to information for analytics and planning. However, these benefits come with notable risks. If a cloud account is compromised, unauthorized access to sensitive information could lead to extortion and lateral movement into mission-critical systems for more damaging attacks on CNI. Even a brief disruption in cloud access can have severe economic repercussions due to the sector’s dependence on these services for resource coordination and the cascading impacts on other critical systems [9].

While supply chain resilience is often evaluated based on a supplier’s initial compliance with baseline standards, organizations must be wary of potential future threats and focus on post-implementation security. It is essential for organizations to employ strategies to protect their assets from attacks that would exploit vulnerabilities within the trusted supply chain. Given that CNI and the transportation sector are prime targets for state-sponsored actors and Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups, the complex and interconnected nature of their supply chains opens the door for opportunistic attackers.

Defenders face the challenge of ensuring secure access and collaboration across numerous, dynamic assets, often without full visibility. Therefore, security solutions must be as dynamic as the threats they face, avoiding reliance on static rules. Real-time assessment of devices behavior, even if deemed trusted by end-users and human security teams, is crucial for maintaining security.

Darktrace’s AI-driven threat detection aligns with the zero-trust principle of assuming the risk of a breach. By leveraging AI that learns an organization’s specific patterns of life, Darktrace provides a tailored security approach ideal for organizations with complex supply chains.

Credit to Nicole Wong, Senior Cyber Analyst Consultant and Ryan Traill, Threat Content Lead

Appendices

Darktrace Model Detections

Key model alerts:

Personalized Sharepoint Share + New Unknown Link
Personalized Sharepoint Share + Bad Display Text
Personalized Sharepoint Share + Distant Recipient Interaction with Domain
Personalized Sharepoint Share + Sender Surge
Personalized Sharepoint Share + Wide Access Sharepoint Link

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Resource Development • Compromise Accounts: Cloud Accounts • T1586.003

Initial Access • Supply Chain Compromise • T1195

References

[1] https://www.cisa.gov/topics/critical-infrastructure-security-and-resilience/critical-infrastructure-sectors

[2] https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/126313/pdf/

[3] https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-161r1.pdf

[4] https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/press-releases/2023/11/15/cloud-security-alliance-launches-the-industry-s-first-authoritative-zero-trust-training-and-credential-the-certificate-of-competence-in-zero-trust-cczt

[5] https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/5286863#:~:text=Summary,anticipate%20staffing%20and%20cost%20increases.

[6] https://darktrace.com/threat-report-2023

[7] https://darktrace.com/resources/first-6-half-year-threat-report-2024

[8] https://dfrlab.org/2023/07/10/critical-infrastructure-and-the-cloud-policy-for-emerging-risk/#transportation

[9] https://access-national-risk-register.service.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/risk-scenario/cyber-attack-transport-sector

Written by

Nicole Wong

Cyber Security Analyst

Inside the SOC

Written by

Nicole Wong

Cyber Security Analyst

•

August 8, 2026

Angel Arribas Lopez

Associate Principal Cyber Analyst

•

July 7, 2026

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July 8, 2026

When AI Infrastructure Becomes Part of the Attack Surface

AI Infrastructure and the Evolving Attack Surface

As organizations deploy generative AI into production environments, a new layer of infrastructure has emerged inside enterprise cloud environments: AI gateways.

What is an AI gateway?

AI gateways are systems that sit between users, applications, and foundation models, often holding privileged cloud permissions and managing access to AI services at scale.

Because of that role, AI gateways are becoming an increasingly important part of the enterprise attack surface. A compromise may provide attackers with access not only to compute resources, but also to cloud identities, model services, sensitive prompts, and other connected systems.

This blog examines how Darktrace investigated a compromised AI gateway connected to Amazon Bedrock services that was subsequently observed communicating with cryptomining infrastructure. Based on its configuration and associated Identity and Access Management (IAM) role, the instance appeared to function as a gateway to Amazon Bedrock-hosted AI services. Following suspected compromise activity, the host was observed communicating repeatedly with known cryptomining infrastructure before subsequently being shut down. Darktrace detected and escalated the activity through its Enhanced Monitoring and Managed Threat Detection services.

While the ultimate impact in this case appeared to be unauthorized cryptomining, the incident is notable because of where it occurred. The compromised asset sat at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, identity, and AI services. Recent research has highlighted how AI gateways such as LiteLLM can become attractive targets due to their ability to centralize credentials, model access, and cloud permissions. Although Darktrace found no evidence linking this activity directly to publicly disclosed LiteLLM vulnerabilities, the incident demonstrates why organizations should treat AI infrastructure as part of their critical attack surface rather than as a standalone application tier [1].

Why cryptomining remains a common cloud post-compromise activity

Cryptomining can be a lucrative post-compromise activity in cloud environments. After gaining access to a cloud asset, attackers may deploy mining software to abuse the victim’s compute resources for financial gain. This type of activity is likely to be opportunistic, targeting exposed services, weak credentials, leaked access keys, vulnerable applications, or misconfigured cloud workloads.

A typical cloud cryptomining intrusion may involve:

Identifying exposed or vulnerable cloud infrastructure
Gaining access through exposed services, credentials, or application weaknesses
Downloading and executing mining software
Establishing repeated outbound connectivity to mining pool infrastructure
Continuing to consume compute resources until the activity is detected and disrupted

The notable element in this case is not the cryptomining alone, but where it occurred: on cloud infrastructure supporting AI-related activity. This shows how assets used to enable AI services can still be exposed to familiar cloud compromise risks.

Investigating a compromised AI gateway connected to Amazon Bedrock

On June 12, 2026, Darktrace observed activity consistent with active cryptomining from an Amazon Web Service (AWS) EC2 instance named LiteLLM-Proxy. The instance appeared to support LiteLLM activity and was associated with an instance profile that had access to Amazon Bedrock resources.

AI gateways are designed to centralize access to large language models, often handling authentication, routing, logging, and policy enforcement for AI applications. From a security perspective, they also aggregate cloud permissions, model access, and application workflows into a single control point. As a result, compromise of an AI gateway can have implications beyond the affected host itself.

While the exact initial access vector could not be confirmed, the activity appears to follow a sequence often seen in compromises of internet-facing systems: brute-forced access, payload delivery, and repeated outbound connectivity to mining pool infrastructure.

Stage 1: Internet-exposed SSH enabled initial access

Prior to the observed cryptomining activity, the LiteLLM-Proxy EC2 instance appeared to be externally exposed over SSH, with port 22 open to 0.0.0.0/0.

*Figure 1: Darktrace’s misconfiguration alert EC2 instance allowing all inbound traffic to SSH port 22.*

Prior to the cryptomining activity, Darktrace observed a large volume of inbound connection attempts to the instance over port 22 from external IP addresses, predominantly from 145.241.123[.]102, suggesting brute-force activity [2]. Many of these connections were short-lived, lasting only a few seconds, indicating scanning or failed login attempts.

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*Figure 2: Darktrace’s detection of unusual incoming connection attempts to the device over port 22.*

The available telemetry did not confirm whether any inbound SSH connection resulted in successful authentication, preventing this activity from being confirmed as the initial access vector. However, the combination of public SSH exposure, inbound connections from external IP addresses, and subsequent miner activity suggests that SSH was a plausible access path.

Stage 2: XMRig malware downloaded to the AI gateway

Before the first observed connection to the mining pool, the EC2 instance downloaded 3.42 MB of data over an HTTP connection on port 80 to the external endpoint, 185.62.1[.]8, which appears to host a ZIP file containing XMRig crypto-mining malware [3][4]. As host-level logs were not available, Darktrace could not confirm how the miner was executed or whether the earlier SSH activity directly enabled payload delivery. However, the timing of the download, followed shortly by repeated mining pool connectivity, supported the assessment that the instance had been compromised and was being used for unauthorized compute activity.

Stage 3 – Compromised AI gateway communicates with cryptomining infrastructure

Just a few minutes later, Darktrace observed the LiteLLM-Proxy EC2 instance connecting to the hostname pool.hasvault[.]pro over HTTPs on port 443. Following the initial connection, repeated outbound connectivity to the same hostname was observed. This pattern is consistent with active cryptomining pool communication, where a compromised host communicates with mining infrastructure to receive work and submit results.

This activity triggered the Enhanced Monitoring model “Compromise / High Priority Crypto Currency Mining”, which was escalated to the customer by Darktrace’s SOC. The activity was also summarized by Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst, which grouped the relevant events into a single investigation narrative, helping to identify the repeated mining pool connectivity from the affected cloud asset.

*Figure 3: Cyber AI Analyst’s investigation of the cryptocurrency mining activity.*

The use of HTTPS over port 443 is notable because, when viewed in isolation, this traffic may not appear inherently suspicious. In this case, however, the destination, volume of connections, and lack of similar activity provided the behavioral context needed to identify the communication as suspicious.

Stage 4: Managed Threat Detection identifies active resource abuse

The cryptomining activity was received by Darktrace’s Managed Threat Detection service and reviewed by Darktrace’s SOC. Following review, the activity was escalated to the customer. This escalation provided the customer with timely notification of active resource abuse in the AWS environment.

Stage 5: Suspicious IAM activity suggests possible cloud credential misuse

Separately, on June 13, Darktrace observed suspicious activity originating from an additional IAM user.

*Figure 4: Darktrace’s Advanced Search highlighting suspicious activity performed by a second IAM user.*

First, the user was observed attempting the “GetSendQuota” event, an action that had not performed by the account within at least the previous three months. Additionally, the source IP address of this command appeared to be 14.176.1[.]47, geolocated in Vietnam, whereas activity for this user had mostly been seen from Amazon IP addresses. Furthermore, the AWS CLI was also observed being used for this activity, which was also unusual for the user. This was detected by the model “IaaS / Unusual Activity / Unusual AWS CLI Activity”.

*Figure 5: Darktrace’s detection of the “GetSendQuota” event.*

Further suspicious activity was observed from the IAM user using the long-term access key. Notably, failed “InvokeModel” and “ListFoundationModels” commands were detected, suggesting attempted interaction with Amazon Bedrock services, including model enumeration or invocation. While this may suggest relation to the LiteLLM compromise observed the previous day, there is insufficient evidence to conclusively link the two events.

The attempted “CreateUser” command was also notable because the requested username appeared low-meaning, which may indicate an attempt to establish persistence by creating a new account. This activity triggered the model “IaaS / Admin / New AWS User Account Creation”.

*Figure 6: Darktrace’s detection of the “CreateUser” event.*

Even without a confirmed link between the two incidents, the IAM activity remains significant. It demonstrates the importance of incorporating workload both telemetry and control-plane telemetry into cloud compromise investigations. While the EC2 cryptomining activity indicated compute resource abuse, the IAM activity suggested potential credential compromise or misuse involving long-term access keys, along with attempted cloud service abuse.

Key lessons for securing AI infrastructure

This incident was notable not because of the cryptomining activity itself, but because of where it occurred. The compromised system appeared to function as an AI gateway with access to Amazon Bedrock services, placing it at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, identity, and AI operations. As organizations deploy AI capabilities into production environments, these platforms are becoming part of the same attack surface that adversaries already target through exposed services, credential theft, and cloud misconfigurations.

While the exact intrusion path could not be confirmed, and no definitive link was established between the compromised workload and the suspicious IAM activity observed during the investigation, both events reinforce a broader reality: AI infrastructure must be secured as part of the wider cloud environment rather than treated as a separate technology stack.

In this case, the most obvious sign of compromise was communication with cryptomining infrastructure. The more important lesson is that Darktrace’s behavioral analysis revealed risk surrounding a privileged AI-enabled asset before the full scope of the incident was understood. As AI gateways increasingly concentrate cloud permissions, model access, and application workflows, defenders will need to focus less on individual alerts and more on understanding how behaviors connect across workloads, identities, and services.

Credit to Angel Arribas Lopez (Associate Principal Cyber Analyst), Nathaniel Jones (Field CISO/VP Threat Research), Emma Foulger (Global Threat Ops), and Mark Turner (Security Researcher)

Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)