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
Taisiia Garkava
Security Analyst
Written by
Dillon Ashmore
Security and Research
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06
Nov 2022
Background of Yanluowang
Yanluowang ransomware, also known as Dryxiphia, was first spotted in October 2021 by Symantec’s Threat Hunter Team. However, it has been operational since August 2021, when a threat actor used it to attack U.S. corporations. Said attack shared similar TTPs with ransomware Thieflock, designed by Fivehands ransomware gangs. This connection alluded to a possible link between the two through the presence or influence of an affiliate. The group has been known for successfully ransoming organisations globally, particularly those in the financial, manufacturing, IT services, consultancy, and engineering sectors.
Yanluowang attacks typically begin with initial reconnaissance, followed by credential harvesting and data exfiltration before finally encrypting the victim’s files. Once deployed on compromised networks, Yanluowang halts hypervisor virtual machines, all running processes and encrypts files using the “.yanluowang” extension. A file with name README.txt, containing a ransom note is also dropped. The note also warns victims against contacting law enforcement, recovery companies or attempting to decrypt the files themselves. Failure to follow this advice would result in distributed denial of service attacks against a victim, its employees and business partners. Followed by another attack, a few weeks later, in which all the victim’s files would be deleted.
The group’s name “Yanluowang” was inspired by the Chinese mythological figure Yanluowang, suggesting the group’s possible Chinese origin. However, the recent leak of chat logs belonging to the group, revealed those involved in the organisation spoke Russian.
Leak of Yanluowang’s chat logs
On the 31st of October, a Twitter user named @yanluowangleaks shared the matrix chat and server leaks of the Yanluowang ransomware gang, alongside the builder and decryption source. In total, six files contained internal conversations between the group’s members. From the analysis of these chats, at least eighteen people have been involved in Yanluowang operations.
Figure 1: Twitter account where the leaks and decryption source were shared
Most active members: ‘@saint’, ‘@killanas’, ‘@guki’, ‘@felix’, ‘@stealer’.
To make the most sense out of the data that we analyzed, we combined the findings into two categories: tactics and organization.
Tactics
From the leaked chat logs, several insights into the group’s operational security and TTPs were gained. Firstly, members were not aware of each other’s offline identities. Secondly, discussions surrounding security precautions for moving finances were discussed by members @killanas and @felix. The two exchanged recommendations on reliable currency exchange platforms as well as which ones to avoid that were known to leak data to law enforcement. The members also expressed paranoia over being caught with substantial amounts of money and therefore took precautions such as withdrawing smaller amounts of cash or using QR codes for withdrawals.
Additionally, the chat logs exposed the TTPs of Yanluowang. Exchanges between the group’s members @stealer, @calls and @saint, explored the possibilities of conducting attacks against critical infrastructure. One of these members, @call, was also quick to emphasise that Yanluowang would not target the critical infrastructure of former Soviet countries. Beyond targets, the chat logs also highlighted Yanluowang’s use of the ransomware, PayloadBIN but also that attacks that involved it may potentially have been misattributed to another ransomware actor, Evil Corp.
Further insight surrounding Yanluowang’s source code was also gained as it was revealed that it had been previously published on XSS.is as a downloadable file. The conversations surrounding this revealed that two members, @killanas and @saint, suspected @stealer was responsible for the leak. This suspicion was supported by @saint, defending another member whom he had known for eight years. It was later revealed that the code had been shared after a request to purchase it was made by a Chinese national. @saint also used their personal connections to have the download link removed from XSS.is. These connections indicate that some members of Yanluowang are well embedded in the ransomware and wider cybercrime community.
Another insight gained from the leaked chat logs was an expression by @saint in support of Ukraine, stating, “We stand with Ukraine” on the negotiation page of Yanluowang’s website. This action reflects a similar trend observed among threat actors where they have taken sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Regarding Yanluowang’s engagement with other groups, it was found that a former member of Conti had joined the group. This inference was made by @saint when a conversation regarding the Conti leak revolved around the possible identification of the now Yanluowang member @guki, in the Conti files. It was also commented that Conti was losing a considerable number of its members who were then looking for new work. Conversations about other ransomware groups were had with the mentioning of the REVIL group by @saint, specifically stating that five arrested members of the gang were former classmates. He backed his statement by attaching the article about it, to which @djonny replies that those are indeed REVIL members and that he knows it from his sources.
Organization
When going through the chat logs, several observations were made that can offer some insights into the group's organizational structure. In one of the leaked files, user @saint was the one to publish the requirements for the group's ".onion" website and was also observed instructing other users on the tasks they had to complete. Based on this, @saint could be considered the leader of the group. Additionally, there was evidence indicating that a few users could be in their 30s or 40s, while most participants are in their 20s.
More details regarding Yanluowang's organizational structure were discussed deeper into the leak. The examples indicate various sub-groups within the Yanlouwang group and that a specific person coordinates each group. From the logs, there is a high probability that @killanas is the leader of the development team and has several people working under him. It is also possible that @stealer is on the same level as @killanas and is potentially the supervisor of another team within the group. This was corroborated when @stealer expressed concerns about the absence of certain group members on several occasions. There is also evidence showing that he was one of three people with access to the source code of the group.
Role delineation within the group was also quite clear, with each user having specific tasks: DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, social engineering, victim negotiations, pentesting or development, to mention a few. When it came to recruiting new members, mostly pentesters, Yanluowang would recruit through XSS.is and Exploit.in forums.
Underground analysis and members’ identification
From the leaked chat logs, several “.onion” URLs were extracted; however, upon further investigation, each site had been taken offline and removed from the TOR hashring. This suggests that Yanluowang may have halted all operations. One of the users on XSS.is posted a picture showing that the Yanluowang onion website was hacked, stating, “CHECKMATE!! YANLUOWANG CHATS HACKED @YANLUOWANGLEAKS TIME’S UP!!”.
Figure 2: The screenshot of Yanluowang website on Tor (currently offline)
After learning that Yanluowang used Russian Web Forums, we did an additional search to see what we could find about the group and the mentioned nicknames.
By searching through XSS.Is we managed to identify the user registered as @yanluowang. The date of the registration on the forum dates to 15 March 2022. Curiously, at the time of analysis, we noticed the user was online. There were in total 20 messages posted by @yanluowang, with a few publications indicating the group is looking for new pentesters.
Figure 3: The screenshot of Yanluowang profile on XSS.is
Figure 4: The screenshot of Yanluowang posts about pentester recruitment on XSS.is
While going through the messages, it was noticed the reaction posted by another user identified as @Sa1ntJohn, which could be the gang member @saint.
Figure 5: The screenshot of Sa1ntJohn’s profile on XSS.is
Looking further, we identified that user @Ekranoplan published three links to the website doxbin.com containing information about three potential members of the YanLuoWang gang: @killanas/coder, @hardbass and @Joe/Uncle. The profile information was published by the user @Xander2727.
Figure 6: The screenshot of Yanlouwang member-profile leak on XSS.is
Figure 7: The screenshot of @hardbass Yanlouwang member profile leak
Figure 8: The screenshot of @killanas/coder Yanlouwang member profile leak.
If the provided information is correct, two group members are Russian and in their 30s, while another member is Ukrainian and in his 20s. One of the members, @killanas, who was also referenced in chat logs, is identified as the lead developer of the Yanluowang group; giving the interpretation of the chat leaks a high-level of confidence. Another two members, who were not referenced in the logs, took roles as Cracked Software/Malware provider and English translator/Victim Negotiator.
Implications for the wider ransomware landscape
To conclude with the potential implications of this leak, we have corroborated the evidence gathered throughout this investigation and employed contrarian analytical techniques. The ascertained implications that follow our mainline judgement, supporting evidence and our current analytical view on the matter can be categorized into three key components of this leak:
Impact on the ransomware landscape
The leak of Yanluowang’s chat logs has several implications for the broader ransomware landscape. This leak, much like the Conti leak in March, spells the end for Yanluowang operations for the time being, given how much of the group’s inner workings it has exposed. This could have an adverse effect. While Yanluowang did not control as large of a share of the ransomware market as Conti did, their downfall will undoubtedly create a vacuum space for established groups for their market share. The latter being a consequence of the release of their source code and build tools.
Source code
The release of Yanluowang’s source code has several outcomes. If the recipients have no malintent, it could aid in reverse engineering the ransomware, like how a decryption tool for Yanluowng was released earlier this year. An alternative scenario is that the publication of the source code will increase the reach and deployment of this ransomware in the future, in adapted or modified versions by other threat actors. Reusing leaked material is notorious among ransomware actors, as seen in the past, when Babuk’s source code was leaked and led to the development of several variants based on this leak, including Rook and Pandora. This could also make it harder to attribute attacks to one specific group.
Members
The migration of unexposed Yanluowang members to other ransomware gangs could further add to the proliferation of ransomware groups. Such forms of spreading ransomware have been documented in the past when former Conti members repurposed their tactics to join efforts with an initial access broker, UAC-0098. Yet, the absence of evidence from members expressing and/or acting upon this claim requires further investigation and analysis. However, as there is no evidence of absence – this implication is based on the previously observed behavior from members of other ransomware gangs.
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.
Under Medusa’s Gaze: How Darktrace Uncovers RMM Abuse in Ransomware Campaigns
What is Medusa Ransomware in 2025?
In 2025, the Medusa Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) emerged as one of the top 10 most active ransomware threat actors [1]. Its growing impact prompted a joint advisory from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [3]. As of January 2026, more than 500 organizations have fallen victim to Medusa ransomware [2].
Darktrace previously investigated Medusa in a 2024 blog, but the group’s rapid expansion and new intelligence released in late 2025 has lead Darktrace’s Threat Research team to investigate further. Recent findings include Microsoft’s research on Medusa actors exploiting a vulnerability in Fortra’s GoAnywhere MFT License Servlet (CVE-2025-10035)[4] and Zencec’s report on Medusa’s abuse of flaws in SimpleHelp’s remote support software (CVE-2024-57726, CVE-2024-57727, CVE-2024-57728) [5].
Reports vary on when Medusa first appeared in the wild. Some sources mention June 2021 as the earliest sightings, while others point to late 2022, when its developers transitioned to the RaaS model, as the true beginning of its operation [3][11].
Madusa Ransomware history and background
The group behind Medusa is known by several aliases, including Storm-1175 and Spearwing [4] [7]. Like its mythological namesake, Medusa has many “heads,” collaborating with initial access brokers (IABs) and, according to some evidence, affiliating with Big Game Hunting (BGH) groups such as Frozen Spider, as well as the cybercriminal group UNC7885 [3][6][13].
Use of Cyrillic in its scripts, activity on Russian-language cybercrime forums, slang unique to Russian criminal subcultures, and avoidance of targets in Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries suggest that Medusa operates from Russia or an allied state [11][12].
Medusa ransomware should not be confused with other similarly named malware, such as the Medusa Android Banking Trojan, the Medusa Botnet/Medusa Stealer, or MedusaLocker ransomware. It is easily distinguishable from these variants because it appends the extension .MEDUSA to encrypted files and drops the ransom note !!!READ_ME_MEDUSA!!!.txt on compromised systems [8].
Who does Madusa Ransomware target?
The group appears to show little restraint, indiscriminately attacking organizations across all sectors, including healthcare, and is known to employ triple extortion tactics whereby sensitive data is encrypted, victims are threatened with data leaks, and additional pressure is applied through DDoS attacks or contacting the victim’s customers, rather than the more common double extortion model [13].
Madusa Ransomware TTPs
To attain initial access, Medusa actors typically purchase access to already compromised devices or accounts via IABs that employ phishing, credential stuffing, or brute-force attacks, and also target vulnerable or misconfigured Internet-facing systems.
Between December 2023 and November 2025, Darktrace observed multiple cases of file encryption related to Medusa ransomware across its customer base. When enabled, Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability intervened early in the attack chain, blocking malicious activity before file encryption could begin.
Some of the affected were based in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), others in the Americas (AMS), and the remainder in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region. The most impacted sectors were financial services and the automotive industry, followed by healthcare, and finally organizations in arts, entertainment and recreation, ICT, and manufacturing.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tool abuse
In most customer environments where Medusa file encryption attempts were observed, and in one case where the compromise was contained before encryption, unusual external HTTP connections associated with JWrapper were also detected. JWrapper is a legitimate tool designed to simplify the packaging, distribution, and management of Java applications, enabling the creation of executables that run across different operating systems. Many of the destination IP addresses involved in this activity were linked to SimpleHelp servers or associated with Atera.
Medusa actors appear to favor RMM tools such as SimpleHelp. Unpatched or misconfigured SimpleHelp RMM servers can serve as an initial access vector to the victims’ infrastructure. After gaining access to SimpleHelp management servers, the threat actors edit server configuration files to redirect existing SimpleHelp RMM agents to communicate with unauthorized servers under their control.
The SimpleHelp tool is not only used for command-and-control (C2) and enabling persistence but is also observed during lateral movement within the network, downloading additional attack tools, data exfiltration, and even ransomware binary execution. Other legitimate remote access tools abused by Medusa in a similar manner to evade detection include Atera, AnyDesk, ScreenConnect, eHorus, N-able, PDQ Deploy/Inventory, Splashtop, TeamViewer, NinjaOne, Navicat, and MeshAgent [4][5][15][16][17].
Data exfiltration
Another correlation among Darktrace customers affected by Medusa was observed during the data exfiltration phase. In several environments, data was exfiltrated to the endpoints erp.ranasons[.]com or pruebas.pintacuario[.]mx (143.110.243[.]154, 144.217.181[.]205) over ports 443, 445, and 80. erp.ranasons[.]com was seemingly active between November 2024 and September 2025, while pruebas.pintacuario[.]mx was seen from November 2024 to March 2025. Evidence suggests that pruebas.pintacuario[.]mx previously hosted a SimpleHelp server [22][23].
Apart from RMM tools, Medusa is also known to use Rclone and Robocopy for data exfiltration [3][19]. During one Medusa compromise detected in mid-2024, the customer’s data was exfiltrated to external destinations associated with the Ngrok proxy service using an SSH-2.0-rclone client.
Medusa Compromise Leveraging SimpleHelp
In Q4 2025, Darktrace assisted a European company impacted by Medusa ransomware. The organization had partial Darktrace / NETWORK coverage and had configured Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability to require manual confirmation for all actions. Despite these constraints, data received through the customer’s security integration with CrowdStrike Falcon enabled Darktrace analysts to reconstruct the attack chain, although the initial access vector remains unclear due to limited visibility.
In late September 2025, a device out of the scope of Darktrace's visibility began scanning the network and using RDP, NTLM/SMB, DCE_RPC, and PowerShell for lateral movement.
CrowdStrike “Defense Evasion: Disable or Modify Tools” alerts related to a suspicious driver (c:\windows\[0-9a-b]{4}.exe) and a PDQ Deploy executable (share=\\<device_hostname>\ADMIN$ file=AdminArsenal\PDQDeployRunner\service-1\exec\[0-9a-b]{4}.exe) suggest that the attackers used the Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) technique to terminate antivirus processes on network devices, leveraging tools such as KillAV or AbyssWorker along with the PDQ Software Deployment solution [19][26].
A few hours later, Darktrace observed the same device that had scanned the network writing Temp\[a-z]{2}.exe over SMB to another device on the same subnet. According to data from the CrowdStrike alert, this executable was linked to an RMM application located at C:\Users\<compromised_user>\Documents\[a-z]{2}.exe. The same compromised user account later triggered a CrowdStrike “Command and Control: Remote Access Tools” alert when accessing C:\ProgramData\JWrapper-Remote Access\JWrapper-Remote Access Bundle-[0-9]{11}\JWrapperTemp-[0-9]{10}-[0-9]{1}-app\bin\windowslauncher.exe [27].
Figure 1: An executable file associated with the SimpleHelp RMM tool being written to other devices using the SMB protocol, as detected by Darktrace.
Soon after, the destination device and multiple other network devices began establishing connections to 31.220.45[.]120 and 213.183.63[.]41, both of which hosted malicious SimpleHelp RMM servers. These C2 connections continued for more than 20 days after the initial compromise.
CrowdStrike integration alerts for the execution of robocopy . "c:\windows\\" /COPY:DT /E /XX /R:0 /W:0 /NP /XF RunFileCopy.cmd /IS /IT commands on several Windows servers, suggested that this utility was likely used to stage files in preparation for data exfiltration [19].
Around two hours later, Darktrace detected another device connecting to the attacker’s SimpleHelp RMM servers. This internal server had ‘doc’ in its hostname, indicating it was likely a file server. It was observed downloading documents from another internal server over SMB and uploading approximately 70 GiB of data to erp.ranasons[.]com (143.110.243[.]154:443).
Figure 2: Data uploaded to erp.ranasons[.]com and the number of model alerts from the exfiltrating device, represented by yellow and orange dots.
Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst autonomously investigated the unusual connectivity, correlating the separate C2 and data exfiltration events into a single incident, providing greater visibility into the ongoing attack.
Figure 3: Cyber AI Analyst identified a file server making C2 connections to an attacker-controlled SimpleHelp server (213.183.63[.]41) and exfiltrating data to erp.ranasons[.]com.
Figure 4: The same file server that connected to 213.183.63[.]41 and exfiltrated data to erp.ranasons[.]com was also observed attempting to connect to an IP address associated with Moscow, Russia (193.37.69[.]154:7070).
One of the devices connecting to the attacker's SimpleHelp RMM servers was also observed downloading 35 MiB from [0-9]{4}.filemail[.]com. Filemail, a legitimate file-sharing service, has reportedly been abused by Medusa actors to deliver additional malicious payloads [11].
Figure 5: A device controlled remotely via SimpleHelp downloading additional tooling from the Filemail file-sharing service.
Finally, integration alerts related to the ransomware binary, such as c:\windows\system32\gaze.exe and <device_hostname>\ADMIN$ file=AdminArsenal\PDQDeployRunner\service-1\exec\gaze.exe, along with “!!!READ_ME_MEDUSA!!!.txt” ransom notes were observed on network devices. This indicates that file encryption in this case was most likely carried out directly on the victim hosts rather than via the SMB protocol [3].
Conclusion
Threat actors, including nation-state actors and ransomware groups like Medusa, have long abused legitimate commercial RMM tools, typically used by system administrators for remote monitoring, software deployment, and device configuration, instead of relying on remote access trojans (RATs).
Attackers employ existing authorized RMM tools or install new remote administration software to enable persistence, lateral movement, data exfiltration, and ingress tool transfer. By mimicking legitimate administrative behavior, RMM abuse enables attackers to evade detection, as security software often implicitly trusts these tools, allowing attackers to bypass traditional security controls [28][29][30].
To mitigate such risks, organizations should promptly patch publicly exposed RMM servers and adopt anomaly-based detection solutions, like Darktrace / NETWORK, which can distinguish legitimate administrative activity from malicious behavior, applying rapid response measures through its Autonomous Response capability to stop attacks in their tracks.
Darktrace delivers comprehensive network visibility and Autonomous Response capabilities, enabling real-time detection of anomalous activity and rapid mitigation, even if an organization fall under Medusa’s gaze.
Credit to Signe Zaharka (Principal Cyber Analyst) and Emma Foulger (Global Threat Research Operations Lead
Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)
Appendices
List of Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)
IoC - Type - Description + Confidence + Time Observed
185.108.129[.]62 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - March 7, 2023
185.126.238[.]119 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - November 26-27, 2024
213.183.63[.]41 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - November 28, 2024 - Sep 30, 2025
213.183.63[.]42 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - July 4 -9 , 2024
31.220.45[.]120 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - September 12 - Oct 20 , 2025
91.92.246[.]110 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - May 24, 2024
45.9.149[.]112:15330 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - June 21, 2024
89.36.161[.]12 IP address Malicious SimpleHelp server observed during Medusa attacks (High confidence) - June 26-28, 2024
193.37.69[.]154:7070 IP address Suspicious RU IP seen on a device being controlled via SimpleHelp and exfiltrating data to a Medusa related endpoint - September 30 - October 20, 2025
erp.ranasons[.]com·143.110.243[.]154 Hostname Data exfiltration destination - November 27, 2024 - September 30, 2025
pruebas.pintacuario[.]mx·144.217.181[.]205 - Hostname Data exfiltration destination - November 27, 2024 - March 26, 2025
lirdel[.]com · 44.235.83[.]125/a.msi (1b9869a2e862f1e6a59f5d88398463d3962abe51e19a59) File & hash Atera related file downloaded with PowerShell - June 20, 2024
wizarr.manate[.]ch/108.215.180[.]161:8585/$/1dIL5 File Suspicious file observed on one of the devices exhibiting unusual activity during a Medusa compromise - February 28, 2024
!!!READ_ME_MEDUSA!!!.txt" File - Ransom note
*.MEDUSA - File extension File extension added to encrypted files
gaze.exe – File - Ransomware binary
Darktrace Model Coverage
Darktrace / NETWORK model detections triggered during connections to attacker controlled SimpleHelp servers:
Anomalous Connection/Anomalous SSL without SNI to New External
Anomalous Connection/Multiple Connections to New External UDP Port
Anomalous Connection/New User Agent to IP Without Hostname
How a leading bank is prioritizing risk management to power a resilient future
As one of the region’s most established financial institutions, this bank sits at the heart of its community’s economic life – powering everything from daily transactions to business growth and long-term wealth planning. Its blend of physical branches and advanced digital services gives customers the convenience they expect and the personal trust they rely on. But as the financial world becomes more interconnected and adversaries more sophisticated, safeguarding that trust requires more than traditional cybersecurity. It demands a resilient, forward-leaning approach that keeps pace with rising threats and tightening regulatory standards.
A complex risk landscape demands a new approach
The bank faced a challenge familiar across the financial sector: too many tools, not enough clarity. Vulnerability scans, pen tests, and risk reports all produced data, yet none worked together to show how exposures connected across systems or what they meant for day-to-day operations. Without a central platform to link and contextualize this data, teams struggled to see how individual findings translated into real exposure across the business.
Fragmented risk assessments: Cyber and operational risks were evaluated in silos, often duplicated across teams, and lacked the context needed to prioritize what truly mattered.
Limited executive visibility: Leadership struggled to gain a complete, real-time view of trends or progress, making risk ownership difficult to enforce.
Emerging compliance pressure: This gap also posed compliance challenges under the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which requires financial institutions to demonstrate continuous oversight, effective reporting, and the ability to withstand and recover from cyber and IT disruptions.
“The issue wasn’t the lack of data,” recalls the bank’s Chief Technology Officer. “The challenge was transforming that data into a unified, contextualized picture we could act on quickly and decisively.”
As the bank advanced its digital capabilities and embraced cloud services, its risk environment became more intricate. New pathways for exploitation emerged, human factors grew harder to quantify, and manual processes hindered timely decision-making. To maintain resilience, the security team sought a proactive, AI-powered platform that could consolidate exposures, deliver continuous insight, and ensure high-value risks were addressed before they escalated.
Choosing Darktrace to unlock proactive cyber resilience
To reclaim control over its fragmented risk landscape, the bank selected Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management™ for cyber risk insight. The solution’s ability to consolidate scanner outputs, pen test results, CVE data, and operational context into one AI-powered view made it the clear choice. Darktrace delivered comprehensive visibility the team had long been missing.
By shifting from a reactive model to proactive security, the bank aimed to:
Improve resilience and compliance with DORA
Prioritize remediation efforts with greater accuracy
Eliminate duplicated work across teams
Provide leadership with a complete view of risk, updated continuously
Reduce the overall likelihood of attack or disruption
The CTO explains: “We needed a solution that didn’t just list vulnerabilities but showed us what mattered most for our business – how risks connected, how they could be exploited, and what actions would create the biggest reduction in exposure. Darktrace gave us that clarity.”
Targeting the risks that matter most
Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management offered the bank a new level of visibility and control by continuously analyzing misconfigurations, critical attack paths, human communication patterns, and high-value assets. Its AI-driven risk scoring allowed the team to understand which vulnerabilities had meaningful business impact, not just which were technically severe.
Unifying exposure across architectures
Darktrace aggregates and contextualizes data from across the bank’s security stack, eliminating the need to manually compile or correlate findings. What once required hours of cross-team coordination now appears in a single, continuously updated dashboard.
Revealing an adversarial view of risk
The solution maps multi-stage, complex attack paths across network, cloud, identity systems, email environments, and endpoints – highlighting risks that traditional CVE lists overlook.
Identifying misconfigurations and controlling gaps
Using Self-Learning AI, Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management spots misconfigurations and prioritizes them based on MITRE adversary techniques, business context, and the bank’s unique digital environment.
Enhancing red-team and pen test effectiveness
By directing testers to the highest-value targets, Darktrace removes guesswork and validates whether defenses hold up against realistic adversarial behavior.
Supporting DORA compliance
From continuous monitoring to executive-ready reporting, the solution provides the transparency and accountability the bank needs to demonstrate operational resilience frameworks.
Proactive security delivers tangible outcomes
Since deploying Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management, the bank has significantly strengthened its cybersecurity posture while improving operational efficiency.
Security teams are now saving more than four hours per week previously spent aggregating and analyzing risk data. With a unified view of their exposure, they can focus directly on remediation instead of manually correlating multiple reports.
Because risks are now prioritized based on business impact and real-time operational context, they no longer waste time on low-value tasks. Instead, critical issues are identified and resolved sooner, reducing potential windows for exploitation and strengthening the bank’s ongoing resilience against both known and emerging threats.
“Our goal was to move from reactive to proactive security,” the CTO says. “Darktrace didn’t just help us achieve that, it accelerated our roadmap. We now understand our environment with a level of clarity we simply didn’t have before.”
Leadership clarity and stronger governance
Executives and board stakeholders now receive clear, organization-wide visibility into the bank’s risk posture, supported by consistent reporting that highlights trends, progress, and areas requiring attention. This transparency has strengthened confidence in the bank’s cyber resilience and enabled leadership to take true ownership of risk across the institution.
Beyond improved visibility, the bank has also deepened its overall governance maturity. Continuous monitoring and structured oversight allow leaders to make faster, more informed decisions that strategically align security efforts with business priorities. With a more predictable understanding of exposure and risk movement over time, the organization can maintain operational continuity, demonstrate accountability, and adapt more effectively as regulatory expectations evolve.
Trading stress for control
With Darktrace, leaders now have the clarity and confidence they need to report to executives and regulators with accuracy. The ability to see organization-wide risk in context provides assurance that the right issues are being addressed at the right time. That clarity is also empowering security analysts who no longer shoulder the anxiety of wondering which risks matter most or whether something critical has slipped through the cracks. Instead, they’re working with focus and intention, redirecting hours of manual effort into strategic initiatives that strengthen the bank’s overall resilience.
Prioritizing risk to power a resilient future
For this leading financial institution, Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management has become the foundation for a more unified, data-driven, and resilient cybersecurity program. With clearer, business-relevant priorities, stronger oversight, and measurable efficiency gains, the bank has strengthened its resilience and met demanding regulatory expectations without adding operational strain.
Most importantly, it shifted the bank’s security posture from a reactive stance to a proactive, continuous program. Giving teams the confidence and intelligence to anticipate threats and safeguard the people and services that depend on them.
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![Data uploaded to erp.ranasons[.]com and the number of model alerts from the exfiltrating device, represented by yellow and orange dots.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/626ff4d25aca2edf4325ff97/69601f43842f8016c3898afd_Screenshot%202026-01-08%20at%201.18.52%E2%80%AFPM.png)
![Cyber AI Analyst identified a file server making C2 connections to an attacker-controlled SimpleHelp server (213.183.63[.]41) and exfiltrating data to erp.ranasons[.]com.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/626ff4d25aca2edf4325ff97/69601f524d01b4d269313c38_Screenshot%202026-01-08%20at%201.19.06%E2%80%AFPM.png)
![The same file server that connected to 213.183.63[.]41 and exfiltrated data to erp.ranasons[.]com was also observed attempting to connect to an IP address associated with Moscow, Russia (193.37.69[.]154:7070).](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/626ff4d25aca2edf4325ff97/69601f6a598a3380572e284e_Screenshot%202026-01-08%20at%201.19.32%E2%80%AFPM.png)
