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July 26, 2022

Identifying PrivateLoader Network Threats

Learn how Darktrace identifies network-based indicators of compromise for the PrivateLoader malware. Gain insights into advanced threat detection.
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
Sam Lister
Specialist Security Researcher
Written by
Shuh Chin Goh
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26
Jul 2022

Instead of delivering their malicious payloads themselves, threat actors can pay certain cybercriminals (known as pay-per-install (PPI) providers) to deliver their payloads for them. Since January 2022, Darktrace’s SOC has observed several cases of PPI providers delivering their clients’ payloads using a modular malware downloader known as ‘PrivateLoader’.

This blog will explore how these PPI providers installed PrivateLoader onto systems and outline the steps which the infected PrivateLoader bots took to install further malicious payloads. The details provided here are intended to provide insight into the operations of PrivateLoader and to assist security teams in identifying PrivateLoader bots within their own networks.  

Threat Summary 

Between January and June 2022, Darktrace identified the following sequence of network behaviours within the environments of several Darktrace clients. Patterns of activity involving these steps are paradigmatic examples of PrivateLoader activity:

1. A victim’s device is redirected to a page which instructs them to download a password-protected archive file from a file storage service — typically Discord Content Delivery Network (CDN)

2. The device contacts a file storage service (typically Discord CDN) via SSL connections

3. The device either contacts Pastebin via SSL connections, makes an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/server.txt’ or ‘server_p.txt’ to 45.144.225[.]57, or makes an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/proxies.txt’ to 212.193.30[.]45

4. The device makes an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/base/api/statistics.php’ to either 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126 or 2.56.59[.]42

5. The device contacts a file storage service (typically Discord CDN) via SSL connections

6. The device makes a HTTP POST request with the URI string ‘/base/api/getData.php’ to either 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126 or 2.56.59[.]42

7. The device finally downloads malicious payloads from a variety of endpoints

The PPI Business 

Before exploring PrivateLoader in more detail, the pay-per-install (PPI) business should be contextualized. This consists of two parties:  

1. PPI clients - actors who want their malicious payloads to be installed onto a large number of target systems. PPI clients are typically entry-level threat actors who seek to widely distribute commodity malware [1]

2. PPI providers - actors who PPI clients can pay to install their malicious payloads 

As the smugglers of the cybercriminal world, PPI providers typically advertise their malware delivery services on underground web forums. In some cases, PPI services can even be accessed via Clearnet websites such as InstallBest and InstallShop [2] (Figure 1).  

Figure 1: A snapshot of the InstallBest PPI login page [2]


To utilize a PPI provider’s service, a PPI client must typically specify: 

(A)  the URLs of the payloads which they want to be installed

(B)  the number of systems onto which they want their payloads to be installed

(C)  their geographical targeting preferences. 

Payment of course, is also required. To fulfil their clients’ requests, PPI providers typically make use of downloaders - malware which instructs the devices on which it is running to download and execute further payloads. PPI providers seek to install their downloaders onto as many systems as possible. Follow-on payloads are usually determined by system information garnered and relayed back to the PPI providers’ command and control (C2) infrastructure. PPI providers may disseminate their downloaders themselves, or they may outsource the dissemination to third parties called ‘affiliates’ [3].  

Back in May 2021, Intel 471 researchers became aware of PPI providers using a novel downloader (dubbed ‘PrivateLoader’) to conduct their operations. Since Intel 471’s public disclosure of the downloader back in Feb 2022 [4], several other threat research teams, such as the Walmart Cyber Intel Team [5], Zscaler ThreatLabz [6], and Trend Micro Research [7] have all provided valuable insights into the downloader’s behaviour. 

Anatomy of a PrivateLoader Infection

The PrivateLoader downloader, which is written in C++, was originally monolithic (i.e, consisted of only one module). At some point, however, the downloader became modular (i.e, consisting of multiple modules). The modules communicate via HTTP and employ various anti-analysis methods. PrivateLoader currently consists of the following three modules [8]: 

  • The loader module: Instructs the system on which it is running to retrieve the IP address of the main C2 server and to download and execute the PrivateLoader core module
  • The core module: Instructs the system on which it is running to send system information to the main C2 server, to download and execute further malicious payloads, and to relay information regarding installed payloads back to the main C2 server
  • The service module: Instructs the system on which it is running to keep the PrivateLoader modules running

Kill Chain Deep-Dive 

The chain of activity starts with the user’s browser being redirected to a webpage which instructs them to download a password-protected archive file from a file storage service such as Discord CDN. Discord is a popular VoIP and instant messaging service, and Discord CDN is the service’s CDN infrastructure. In several cases, the webpages to which users’ browsers were redirected were hosted on ‘hero-files[.]com’ (Figure 2), ‘qd-files[.]com’, and ‘pu-file[.]com’ (Figure 3). 

Figure 2: An image of a page hosted on hero-files[.]com - an endpoint which Darktrace observed systems contacting before downloading PrivateLoader from Discord CDN
Figure 3: An image of a page hosted on pu-file[.]com- an endpoint which Darktrace observed systems contacting before downloading PrivateLoader from Discord CDN


On attempting to download cracked/pirated software, users’ browsers were typically redirected to download instruction pages. In one case however, a user’s device showed signs of being infected with the malicious Chrome extension, ChromeBack [9], immediately before it contacted a webpage providing download instructions (Figure 4). This may suggest that cracked software downloads are not the only cause of users’ browsers being redirected to these download instruction pages (Figure 5). 

Figure 4: The event log for this device (taken from the Darktrace Threat Visualiser interface) shows that the device contacted endpoints associated with ChromeBack ('freychang[.]fun') prior to visiting a page ('qd-file[.]com') which instructed the device’s user to download an archive file from Discord CDN
 Figure 5: An image of the website 'crackright[.]com'- a provider of cracked software. Systems which attempted to download software from this website were subsequently led to pages providing instructions to download a password-protected archive from Discord CDN


After users’ devices were redirected to pages instructing them to download a password-protected archive, they subsequently contacted cdn.discordapp[.]com over SSL. The archive files which users downloaded over these SSL connections likely contained the PrivateLoader loader module. Immediately after contacting the file storage endpoint, users’ devices were observed either contacting Pastebin over SSL, making an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/server.txt’ or ‘server_p.txt’ to 45.144.225[.]57, or making an HTTP GET request with the URI string ‘/proxies.txt’ to 212.193.30[.]45 (Figure 6).

Distinctive user-agent strings such as those containing question marks (e.g. ‘????ll’) and strings referencing outdated Chrome browser versions were consistently seen in these HTTP requests. The following chrome agent was repeatedly observed: ‘Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36’.

In some cases, devices also displayed signs of infection with other strains of malware such as the RedLine infostealer and the BeamWinHTTP malware downloader. This may suggest that the password-protected archives embedded several payloads.

Figure 6: This figure, obtained from Darktrace's Advanced Search interface, represents the post-infection behaviour displayed by a PrivateLoader bot. After visiting hero-files[.]com and downloading the PrivateLoader loader module from Discord CDN, the device can be seen making HTTP GET requests for ‘/proxies.txt’ and ‘/server.txt’ and contacting pastebin[.]com

It seems that PrivateLoader bots contact Pastebin, 45.144.225[.]57, and 212.193.30[.]45 in order to retrieve the IP address of PrivateLoader’s main C2 server - the server which provides PrivateLoader bots with payload URLs. This technique used by the operators of PrivateLoader closely mirrors the well-known espionage tactic known as ‘dead drop’.

The dead drop is a method of espionage tradecraft in which an individual leaves a physical object such as papers, cash, or weapons in an agreed hiding spot so that the intended recipient can retrieve the object later on without having to come in to contact with the source. When threat actors host information about core C2 infrastructure on intermediary endpoints, the hosted information is analogously called a ‘Dead Drop Resolver’ or ‘DDR’. Example URLs of DDRs used by PrivateLoader:

  • https://pastebin[.]com/...
  • http://212.193.30[.]45/proxies.txt
  • http://45.144.225[.]57/server.txt
  • http://45.144.255[.]57/server_p.txt

The ‘proxies.txt’ DDR hosted on 212.193.40[.]45 contains a list of 132 IP address / port pairs. The 119th line of this list includes a scrambled version of the IP address of PrivateLoader’s main C2 server (Figures 7 & 8). Prior to June, it seems that the main C2 IP address was ‘212.193.30[.]21’, however, the IP address appears to have recently changed to ‘85.202.169[.]116’. In a limited set of cases, Darktrace also observed PrivateLoader bots retrieving payload URLs from 2.56.56[.]126 and 2.56.59[.]42 (rather than from 212.193.30[.]21 or 85.202.169[.]116). These IP addresses may be hardcoded secondary C2 address which PrivateLoader bots use in cases where they are unable to retrieve the primary C2 address from Pastebin, 212.193.30[.]45 or 45.144.255[.]57 [10]. 

Figure 7: Before June, the 119th entry of the ‘proxies.txt’ file lists '30.212.21.193' -  a scrambling of the ‘212.193.30[.]21’ main C2 IP address
Figure 8: Since June, the 119th entry of the ‘proxies.txt’ file lists '169.85.116.202' - a scrambling of the '85.202.169[.]116' main C2 IP address

Once PrivateLoader bots had retrieved C2 information from either Pastebin, 45.144.225[.]57, or 212.193.30[.]45, they went on to make HTTP GET requests for ‘/base/api/statistics.php’ to either 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126, or 2.56.59[.]42 (Figure 9). The server responded to these requests with an XOR encrypted string. The strings were encrypted using a 1-byte key [11], such as 0001101 (Figure 10). Decrypting the string revealed a URL for a BMP file hosted on Discord CDN, such as ‘hxxps://cdn.discordapp[.]com/attachments/978284851323088960/986671030670078012/PL_Client.bmp’. These encrypted URLs appear to be file download paths for the PrivateLoader core module. 

Figure 9: HTTP response from server to an HTTP GET request for '/base/api/statistics.php'
Figure 10: XOR decrypting the string with the one-byte key, 00011101, outputs a URL in CyberChef

After PrivateLoader bots retrieved the 'cdn.discordapp[.]com’ URL from 212.193.30[.]21, 85.202.169[.]116, 2.56.56[.]126, or 2.56.59[.]42, they immediately contacted Discord CDN via SSL connections in order to obtain the PrivateLoader core module. Execution of this module resulted in the bots making HTTP POST requests (with the URI string ‘/base/api/getData.php’) to the main C2 address (Figures 11 & 12). Both the data which the PrivateLoader bots sent over these HTTP POST requests and the data returned via the C2 server’s HTTP responses were heavily encrypted using a combination of password-based key derivation, base64 encoding, AES encryption, and HMAC validation [12]. 

Figure 11: The above image, taken from Darktrace's Advanced Search interface, shows a PrivateLoader bot carrying out the following steps: contact ‘hero-files[.]com’ --> contact ‘cdn.discordapp[.]com’ --> retrieve ‘/proxies.txt’ from 212.193.30[.]45 --> retrieve ‘/base/api/statistics.php’ from 212.193.30[.]21 --> contact ‘cdn.discordapp[.]com --> make HTTP POST request with the URI ‘base/api/getData.php’ to 212.193.30[.]21
Figure 12: A PCAP of the data sent via the HTTP POST (in red), and the data returned by the C2 endpoint (in blue)

These ‘/base/api/getData.php’ POST requests contain a command, a campaign name and a JSON object. The response may either contain a simple status message (such as “success”) or a JSON object containing URLs of payloads. After making these HTTP connections, PrivateLoader bots were observed downloading and executing large volumes of payloads (Figure 13), ranging from crypto-miners to infostealers (such as Mars stealer), and even to other malware downloaders (such as SmokeLoader). In some cases, bots were also seen downloading files with ‘.bmp’ extensions, such as ‘Service.bmp’, ‘Cube_WW14.bmp’, and ‘NiceProcessX64.bmp’, from 45.144.225[.]57 - the same DDR endpoint from which PrivateLoader bots retrieved main C2 information. These ‘.bmp’ payloads are likely related to the PrivateLoader service module [13]. Certain bots made follow-up HTTP POST requests (with the URI string ‘/service/communication.php’) to either 212.193.30[.]21 or 85.202.169[.]116, indicating the presence of the PrivateLoader service module, which has the purpose of establishing persistence on the device (Figure 14). 

Figure 13: The above image, taken from Darktrace's Advanced Search interface, outlines the plethora of malware payloads downloaded by a PrivateLoader bot after it made an HTTP POST request to the ‘/base/api/getData.php’ endpoint. The PrivateLoader service module is highlighted in red
Figure 14: The event log for a PrivateLoader bot, obtained from the Threat Visualiser interface, shows a device making HTTP POST requests to ‘/service/communication.php’ and connecting to the NanoPool mining pool, indicating successful execution of downloaded payloads

In several observed cases, PrivateLoader bots downloaded another malware downloader called ‘SmokeLoader’ (payloads named ‘toolspab2.exe’ and ‘toolspab3.exe’) from “Privacy Tools” endpoints [14], such as ‘privacy-tools-for-you-802[.]com’ and ‘privacy-tools-for-you-783[.]com’. These “Privacy Tools” domains are likely impersonation attempts of the legitimate ‘privacytools[.]io’ website - a website run by volunteers who advocate for data privacy [15]. 

After downloading and executing malicious payloads, PrivateLoader bots were typically seen contacting crypto-mining pools, such as NanoPool, and making HTTP POST requests to external hosts associated with SmokeLoader, such as hosts named ‘host-data-coin-11[.]com’ and ‘file-coin-host-12[.]com’ [16]. In one case, a PrivateLoader bot went on to exfiltrate data over HTTP to an external host named ‘cheapf[.]link’, which was registered on the 14th March 2022 [17]. The name of the file which the PrivateLoader bot used to exfiltrate data was ‘NOP8QIMGV3W47Y.zip’, indicating information stealing activities by Mars Stealer (Figure 15) [18]. By saving the HTTP stream as raw data and utilizing a hex editor to remove the HTTP header portions, the hex data of the ZIP file was obtained. Saving the hex data using a ‘.zip’ extension and extracting the contents, a file directory consisting of system information and Chrome and Edge browsers’ Autofill data in cleartext .txt file format could be seen (Figure 16).

Figure 15: A PCAP of a PrivateLoader bot’s HTTP POST request to cheapf[.]link, with data sent by the bot appearing to include Chrome and Edge autofill data, as well as system information
Figure 16: File directory structure and files of the ZIP archive 

When left unattended, PrivateLoader bots continued to contact C2 infrastructure in order to relay details of executed payloads and to retrieve URLs of further payloads. 

Figure 17: Timeline of the attack

Darktrace Coverage 

Most of the incidents surveyed for this article belonged to prospective customers who were trialling Darktrace with RESPOND in passive mode, and thus without the ability for autonomous intervention. However in all observed cases, Darktrace DETECT was able to provide visibility into the actions taken by PrivateLoader bots. In one case, despite the infected bot being disconnected from the client’s network, Darktrace was still able to provide visibility into the device’s network behaviour due to the client’s usage of Darktrace/Endpoint. 

If a system within an organization’s network becomes infected with PrivateLoader, it will display a range of anomalous network behaviours before it downloads and executes malicious payloads. For example, it will contact Pastebin or make HTTP requests with new and unusual user-agent strings to rare external endpoints. These network behaviours will generate some of the following alerts on the Darktrace UI:

  • Compliance / Pastebin 
  • Device / New User Agent and New IP
  • Device / New User Agent
  • Device / Three or More New User Agents
  • Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname
  • Anomalous Connection / POST to PHP on New External Host
  • Anomalous Connection / Posting HTTP to IP Without Hostname

Once the infected host obtains URLs for malware payloads from a C2 endpoint, it will likely start to download and execute large volumes of malicious files. These file downloads will usually cause Darktrace to generate some of the following alerts:

  • Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location
  • Anomalous File / Numeric Exe Download
  • Anomalous File / Masqueraded File Transfer
  • Anomalous File / Multiple EXE from Rare External Locations
  • Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise

If RESPOND is deployed in active mode, Darktrace will be able to autonomously block the download of additional malware payloads onto the target machine and the subsequent beaconing or crypto-mining activities through network inhibitors such as ‘Block matching connections’, ‘Enforce pattern of life’ and ‘Block all outgoing traffic’. The ‘Enforce pattern of life’ action results in a device only being able to make connections and data transfers which Darktrace considers normal for that device. The ‘Block all outgoing traffic’ action will cause all traffic originating from the device to be blocked. If the customer has Darktrace’s Proactive Threat Notification (PTN) service, then a breach of an Enhanced Monitoring model such as ‘Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise’ will result in a Darktrace SOC analyst proactively notifying the customer of the suspicious activity. Below is a list of Darktrace RESPOND (Antigena) models which would be expected to breach due to PrivateLoader activity. Such models can seriously hamper attempts made by PrivateLoader bots to download malicious payloads. 

  • Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Block
  • Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Controlled and Model Breach
  • Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block
  • Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Significant Anomaly from Client Block 
  • Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Breaches Over Time Block

In one observed case, the infected bot began to download malicious payloads within one minute of becoming infected with PrivateLoader. Since RESPOND was correctly configured, it was able to immediately intervene by autonomously enforcing the device’s pattern of life for 2 hours and blocking all of the device’s outgoing traffic for 10 minutes (Figure 17). When malware moves at such a fast pace, the availability of autonomous response technology, which can respond immediately to detected threats, is key for the prevention of further damage.  

Figure 18: The event log for a Darktrace RESPOND (Antigena) model breach shows Darktrace RESPOND performing inhibitive actions once the PrivateLoader bot begins to download payloads

Conclusion

By investigating PrivateLoader infections over the past couple of months, Darktrace has observed PrivateLoader operators making changes to the downloader’s main C2 IP address and to the user-agent strings which the downloader uses in its C2 communications. It is relatively easy for the operators of PrivateLoader to change these superficial network-based features of the malware in order to evade detection [19]. However, once a system becomes infected with PrivateLoader, it will inevitably start to display anomalous patterns of network behaviour characteristic of the Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) discussed in this blog.

Throughout 2022, Darktrace observed overlapping patterns of network activity within the environments of several customers, which reveal the archetypal steps of a PrivateLoader infection. Despite the changes made to PrivateLoader’s network-based features, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI was able to continually identify infected bots, detecting every stage of an infection without relying on known indicators of compromise. When configured, RESPOND was able to immediately respond to such infections, preventing further advancement in the cyber kill chain and ultimately preventing the delivery of floods of payloads onto infected devices.

IoCs

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques Observed

References

[1], [8],[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldp7eESQotM  

[2] https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2021/09/01/fake-pirated-software-sites-serve-up-malware-droppers-as-a-service/

[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228873118_Measuring_Pay-per Install_The_Commoditization_of_Malware_Distribution 

[4], [15] https://intel471.com/blog/privateloader-malware

[5] https://medium.com/walmartglobaltech/privateloader-to-anubis-loader-55d066a2653e 

[6], [10],[11], [12] https://www.zscaler.com/blogs/security-research/peeking-privateloader 

[7] https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/22/e/netdooka-framework-distributed-via-privateloader-ppi.html

[9] https://www.gosecure.net/blog/2022/02/10/malicious-chrome-browser-extension-exposed-chromeback-leverages-silent-extension-loading/

[14] https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/threat-insight/malware-masquerades-privacy-tool 

[16] https://asec.ahnlab.com/en/30513/ 

[17]https://twitter.com/0xrb/status/1515956690642161669

[18] https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/Arkei+Variants+From+Vidar+to+Mars+Stealer/28468

[19] http://detect-respond.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-pyramid-of-pain.html

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
Sam Lister
Specialist Security Researcher
Written by
Shuh Chin Goh

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October 24, 2025

Patch Smarter, Not Harder: Now Empowering Security Teams with Business-Aligned Threat Context Agents

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Most risk management programs remain anchored in enumeration: scanning every asset, cataloging every CVE, and drowning in lists that rarely translate into action. Despite expensive scanners, annual pen tests, and countless spreadsheets, prioritization still falters at two critical points.

Context gaps at the device level: It’s hard to know which vulnerabilities actually matter to your business given existing privileges, what software it runs, and what controls already reduce risk.

Business translation: Even when the technical priority is clear, justifying effort and spend in financial terms—especially across many affected devices—can delay action. Especially if it means halting other areas of the business that directly generate revenue.

The result is familiar: alert fatigue, “too many highs,” and remediation that trails behind the threat landscape. Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management addresses this by pairing precise, endpoint‑level context with clear, financial insight so teams can prioritize confidently and mobilize faster.

A powerful combination: No-Telemetry Endpoint Agent + Cost-Benefit Analysis

Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management now uniquely combines technical precision with business clarity in a single workflow.  With this release, Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management delivers a more holistic approach, uniting technical context and financial insight to drive proactive risk reduction. The result is a single solution that helps security teams stay ahead of threats while reducing noise, delays, and complexity.

  • No-Telemetry Endpoint: Collects installed software data and maps it to known CVEs—without network traffic—providing device-level vulnerability context and operational relevance.
  • Cost-Benefit Analysis for Patching: Calculates ROI by comparing patching effort with potential exploit impact, factoring in headcount time, device count, patch difficulty, and automation availability.

Introducing the No-Telemetry Endpoint Agent

Darktrace’s new endpoint agent inventories installed software on devices and maps it to known CVEs without collecting network data so you can prioritize using real device context and available security controls.

By grounding vulnerability findings in the reality of each endpoint, including its software footprint and existing controls, teams can cut through generic severity scores and focus on what matters most. The agent is ideal for remote devices, BYOD-adjacent fleets, or environments standardizing on Darktrace, and is available without additional licensing cost.

Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management user interface
Figure 1: Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management user interface

Built-In Cost-Benefit Analysis for Patching

Security teams often know what needs fixing but stakeholders need to understand why now. Darktrace’s new cost-benefit calculator compares the total cost to patch against the potential cost of exploit, producing an ROI for the patch action that expresses security action in clear financial terms.

Inputs like engineer time, number of affected devices, patch difficulty, and automation availability are factored in automatically. The result is a business-aligned justification for every patching decision—helping teams secure buy-in, accelerate approvals, and move work forward with one-click ticketing, CSV export, or risk acceptance.

Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management Cost Benefit Analysis
Figure 2: Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management Cost Benefit Analysis

A Smarter, Faster Approach to Exposure Management

Together, the no-telemetry endpoint and Cost–Benefit Analysis advance the CTEM motion from theory to practice. You gain higher‑fidelity discovery and validation signals at the device level, paired with business‑ready justification that accelerates mobilization. The result is fewer distractions, clearer priorities, and faster measurable risk reduction. This is not from chasing every alert, but by focusing on what moves the needle now.

  • Smarter Prioritization: Device‑level context trims noise and spotlights the exposures that matter for your business.
  • Faster Decisions: Built‑in ROI turns technical urgency into executive clarity—speeding approvals and action.
  • Practical Execution: Privacy‑conscious endpoint collection and ticketing/export options fit neatly into existing workflows.
  • Better Outcomes: Close the loop faster—discover, prioritize, validate, and mobilize—on the same operating surface.

Committed to innovation

These updates are part of the broader Darktrace release, which also included:

1. Major innovations in cloud security with the launch of the industry’s first fully automated cloud forensics solution, reinforcing Darktrace’s leadership in AI-native security.

2. Darktrace Network Endpoint eXtended Telemetry (NEXT) is revolutionizing NDR with the industry’s first mixed-telemetry agent using Self-Learning AI.

3. Improvements to our OT product, purpose built for industrial infrastructure, Darktrace / OT now brings dedicated OT dashboard, segmentation-aware risk modeling, and expanded visibility into edge assets and automation protocols.

Join our Live Launch Event

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December 9, 2025

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Join our live broadcast to experience how Darktrace is eliminating blind spots for detection and response across your complete enterprise with new innovations in Agentic AI across our ActiveAI Security platform. Industry leaders from IDC will join Darktrace customers to discuss challenges in cross-domain security, with a live walkthrough reshaping the future of Network Detection & Response, Endpoint Detection & Response, Email Security, and SecOps in novel threat detection and autonomous investigations.

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October 24, 2025

Darktrace Announces Extended Visibility Between Confirmed Assets and Leaked Credentials from the Deep and Dark Web

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Why exposure management needs to evolve beyond scans and checklists

The modern attack surface changes faster than most security programs can keep up. New assets appear, environments change, and adversaries are increasingly aided by automation and AI. Traditional approaches like periodic scans, static inventories, or annual pen tests are no longer enough. Without a formal exposure program, many businesses are flying blind, unaware of where the next threat may emerge.

This is where Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) becomes essential. Introduced by Gartner, CTEM helps organizations continuously assess, validate, and improve their exposure to real-world threats. It reframes the problem: scope your true attack surface, prioritize based on business impact and exploitability, and validate what attackers can actually do today, not once a year.

With two powerful new capabilities, Darktrace / Attack Surface Management helps organizations evolve their CTEM programs to meet the demands of today’s threat landscape. These updates make CTEM a reality, not just a strategy.

Too much data, not enough direction

Modern Attack Surface Management tools excel at discovering assets such as cloud workloads, exposed APIs, and forgotten domains. But they often fall short when it comes to prioritization. They rely on static severity scores or generic CVSS ratings, which do not reflect real-world risk or business impact.

This leaves security teams with:

  • Alert fatigue from hundreds of “critical” findings
  • Patch paralysis due to unclear prioritization
  • Blind spots around attacker intent and external targeting

CISOs need more than visibility. They need confidence in what to fix first and context to justify those decisions to stakeholders.

Evolving Attack Surface Management

Attack Surface Management (ASM) must evolve from static lists and generic severity scores to actionable intelligence that helps teams make the right decision now.

Joining the recent addition of Exploit Prediction Assessment, which debuted in late June 2025, today we’re introducing two capabilities that push ASM into that next era:

  • Exploit Prediction Assessment: Continuously validates whether top-priority exposures are actually exploitable in your environment without waiting for patch cycles or formal pen tests.  
  • Deep & Dark Web Monitoring: Extends visibility across millions of sources in the deep and dark web to detect leaked credentials linked to your confirmed domains.
  • Confidence Score: our newly developed AI classification platform will compare newly discovered assets to assets that are known to belong to your organization. The more these newly discovered assets look similar to assets that belong to your organization, the higher the score will be.

Together, these features compress the window from discovery to decision, so your team can act with precision, not panic. The result is a single solution that helps teams stay ahead of attackers without introducing new complexities.

Exploit Prediction Assessment

Traditional penetration tests are invaluable, but they’re often a snapshot of that point-in-time, are potentially disruptive, and compliance frameworks still expect them. Not to mention, when vulnerabilities are present, teams can act immediately rather than relying solely on information from CVSS scores or waiting for patch cycles.  

Unlike full pen tests which can be obtrusive and are usually done only a couple times per year, Exploit Prediction Assessment is surgical, continuous, and focused only on top issues Instead of waiting for vendor patches or the next pen‑test window. It helps confirm whether a top‑priority exposure is actually exploitable in your environment right now.  

For more information on this visit our blog: Beyond Discovery: Adding Intelligent Vulnerability Validation to Darktrace / Attack Surface Management

Deep and Dark Web Monitoring: Extending the scope

Customers have been asking for this for years, and it is finally here. Defense against the dark web. Darktrace / Attack Surface Management’s reach now spans millions of sources across the deep and dark web including forums, marketplaces, breach repositories, paste sites, and other hard‑to‑reach communities to detect leaked credentials linked to your confirmed domains.  

Monitoring is continuous, so you’re alerted as soon as evidence of compromise appears. The surface web is only a fraction of the internet, and a sizable share of risk hides beyond it. Estimates suggest the surface web represents roughly ~10% of all online content, with the rest gated or unindexed—and the TOR-accessible dark web hosts a high proportion of illicit material (a King’s College London study found ~57% of surveyed onion sites contained illicit content), underscoring why credential leakage and brand abuse often appear in places traditional monitoring doesn’t reach. Making these spaces high‑value for early warning signals when credentials or brand assets appear. Most notably, this includes your company’s reputation, assets like servers and systems, and top executives and employees at risk.

What changes for your team

Before:

  • Hundreds of findings, unclear what to start with
  • Reactive investigations triggered by incidents

After:

  • A prioritized backlog based on confidence score or exploit prediction assessment verification
  • Proactive verification of exposure with real-world risk without manual efforts

Confidence Score: Prioritize based on the use-case you care most about

What is it?

Confidence Score is a metric that expresses similarity of newly discover assets compared to the confirmed asset inventory. Several self-learning algorithms compare features of assets to be able to calculate a score.

Why it matters

Traditional Attack Surface Management tools treat all new discovery equally, making it unclear to your team how to identify the most important newly discovered assets, potentially causing you to miss a spoofing domain or shadow IT that could impact your business.

How it helps your team

We’re dividing newly discovered assets into separate insight buckets that each cover a slightly different business case.

  • Low scoring assets: to cover phishing & spoofing domains (like domain variants) that are just being registered and don't have content yet.
  • Medium scoring assets: have more similarities to your digital estate, but have better matching to HTML, brand names, keywords. Can still be phishing but probably with content.
  • High scoring assets: These look most like the rest of your confirmed digital estate, either it's phishing that needs the highest attention, or the asset belongs to your attack surface and requires asset state confirmation to enable the platform to monitor it for risks.

Smarter Exposure Management for CTEM Programs

Recent updates to Darktrace / Attack Surface Management directly advance the core phases of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM): scope, discover, prioritize, validate, and mobilize. The new Exploit Prediction Assessment helps teams validate and prioritize vulnerabilities based on real-world exploitability, while Deep & Dark Web Monitoring extends discovery into hard-to-reach areas where stolen data and credentials often surface. Together, these capabilities reduce noise, accelerate remediation, and help organizations maintain continuous visibility over their expanding attack surface.

Building on these innovations, Darktrace / Attack Surface Management empowers security teams to focus on what truly matters. By validating exploitability, it cuts through the noise of endless vulnerability lists—helping defenders concentrate on exposures that represent genuine business risk. Continuous monitoring for leaked credentials across the deep and dark web further extends visibility beyond traditional asset discovery, closing critical blind spots where attackers often operate. Crucially, these capabilities complement, not replace, existing security controls such as annual penetration tests, providing continuous, low-friction validation between formal assessments. The result is a more adaptive, resilient security posture that keeps pace with an ever-evolving threat landscape.

If you’re building or maturing a CTEM program—and want fewer open exposures, faster remediation, and better outcomes, Darktrace / Attack Surface Management’s new Exploit Prediction Assessment and Deep & Dark Web Monitoring are ready to help.

  • Want a more in-depth look at how Exploit Prediction Assessment functions? Read more here

Committed to innovation

These updates are part of the broader Darktrace release, which also included:

1. Major innovations in cloud security with the launch of the industry’s first fully automated cloud forensics solution, reinforcing Darktrace’s leadership in AI-native security.

2. Darktrace Network Endpoint eXtended Telemetry (NEXT) is revolutionizing NDR with the industry’s first mixed-telemetry agent using Self-Learning AI.

3. Improvements to our OT product, purpose built for industrial infrastructure, Darktrace / OT now brings dedicated OT dashboard, segmentation-aware risk modeling, and expanded visibility into edge assets and automation protocols.

Join our Live Launch Event

When? 

December 9, 2025

What will be covered?

Join our live broadcast to experience how Darktrace is eliminating blind spots for detection and response across your complete enterprise with new innovations in Agentic AI across our ActiveAI Security platform. Industry leaders from IDC will join Darktrace customers to discuss challenges in cross-domain security, with a live walkthrough reshaping the future of Network Detection & Response, Endpoint Detection & Response, Email Security, and SecOps in novel threat detection and autonomous investigations.

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