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July 27, 2023

Revealing Outlaw's Returning Features & New Tactics

Darktrace's investigation of the latest Outlaw crypto-mining operation, covering the resurgence of old tactics along with the emergence of new ones.
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
Adam Potter
Senior Cyber Analyst
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27
Jul 2023

What is Outlaw Cryptocurrency Mining Operation?

The cybersecurity community has been aware of the threat of Outlaw cryptocurrency mining operation, and its affiliated activities since as early as 2018. Despite its prominence, Outlaw remains largely elusive to researchers and analysts due to its ability to adapt its tactics, procedures, and payloads.

Outlaw gained notoriety in 2018 as security researchers began observing the creation of affiliated botnets.[1][2]  Researchers gave Outlaw  its name based on the English translation of the “Haiduc” tool observed during their initial activity on compromised devices.[3],[4] By 2019, much of the initial Outlaw activity  focused on the targeting of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other internet facing servers, reportedly focusing operations in China and on Chinese devices.[5],[6]  From the outset, mining operations featured as a core element of botnets created by the group.[7] This initial focus may have been a sign of caution by threat actors or a preliminary means of testing procedures and operation efficacy. Regardless, Outlaw actors inevitably expanded scope, targeting larger organizations and a wider range of internet facing devices across geographic scope.

Following a short period of inactivity, security researchers began to observe new Outlaw activity, showcasing additional capabilities such as the ability to kill existing crypto-mining processes on devices, thereby reclaiming devices already compromised by crypto-jacking. [8],[9]

Latest News on Outlaw

Although the more recently observed incidents of Outlaw did demonstrate some new tactics, many of its procedures remained the same, including its unique bundling of payloads that combine crypto-mining and botnet capabilities. [10] In conjunction, the continued use of mining-specific payloads and growth of affiliated botnets has bolstered the belief that Outlaw actors historically prioritizes financial gain, in lieu of overt political objectives.

Given the tendency for malicious actors to share tools and capabilities, true attribution of threat or threat group is extremely difficult in the wild. As such, a genuine survey of activity from the group across a customer base has not always been possible. Therefore, we will present an updated look into more recent activity associated with Outlaw detected across the Darktrace customer base.  

Darktrace vs Outlaw

Since late 2022, Darktrace has observed a rise in probable cyber incidents involving indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with Outlaw. Given its continued prevalence and relative dearth of information, it is essential to take a renewed look at the latest campaign activity associated with threats like Outlaw to avoid making erroneous assumptions and to ensure the threat posed is correctly characterized.

While being aware of previous IoCs and tactics known to be employed in previous campaigns will go some way to protecting against future Outlaw attacks, it is paramount for organizations to arm themselves with an autonomous intelligent decision maker that can identify malicious activity, based on recognizing deviations from expected patterns of behavior, and take preventative action to effectively defend against such a versatile threat.

Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection means it is uniquely positioned to detect novel campaign activity by recognizing subtle deviations in affected devices’ behavior that would have gone unnoticed by traditional security tools relying on rules, signatures and known IoCs.

Outlaw Attack Overview & Darktrace Coverage

From late 2022 through early 2023, Darktrace identified multiple cyber events involving IP addresses, domains, and payloads associated with Outlaw on customer networks. In this recent re-emergence of campaign activity, Darktrace identified numerous attack vectors and IoCs that had previously been associated with Outlaw, however it also observed significant deviations from previous campaigns.

Returning Features

As outlined in a previous blog, past iterations of Outlaw compromises include four identified, distinct phases:

1. Targeting of internet facing devices via SSH brute-forcing

2. Initiation of crypto-mining operations

3. Download of shell script and/or botnet malware payloads

4. Outgoing external SSH scanning to propagate the botnet

Nearly all affected devices analyzed by Darktrace were tagged as internet facing, as identified in previous campaigns, supporting the notion that Outlaw continues to focus on easily exposed devices. In addition to this, Darktrace observed three other core returning features from previous Outlaw campaigns in affected devices between late 2022 and early 2023:

1. Gzip and/or Script Download

2. Beaconing Activity (Command and Control)

3. Crypto-mining

Gzip and/or Script Download

Darktrace observed numerous devices downloading the Dota malware, a strain that is previously known to have been associated with the Outlaw botnet, as either a gzip file or a shell script from rare external hosts.

In some examples, IP addresses that provided the payload were flagged by open-source intelligence (OSINT) sources as having engaged in widespread SSH brute-forcing activities. While the timing of the payload transfer to the device was not consistent, download of gzip files featured prominently during directly observed or potentially affiliated activity. Moreover, Darktrace detected multiple devices performing HTTP requests for shell scripts (.sh) according to detected connection URIs. Darktrace DETECT was able to identify these anomalous connections due to the rarity of the endpoint, payloads, and connectivity for the devices.

Figure 1: Darktrace Cyber AI Analyst technical details summary from an incident during the analysis timeframe that highlights a breach device retrieving the anomalous shell scripts using wget.

Beaconing Activity – Command and Control (C2) Endpoint

Across all Outlaw activity identified by Darktrace, devices engaged in some form of beaconing behavior, rather than one-off connections to IPs associated with Outlaw. While the use of application protocol was not uniform, repeated connectivity to rare external IP addresses related to Outlaw occurred across many analyzed incidents. Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI understood that this beaconing activity represented devices deviating from their expected patterns of life and was able to bring it to the immediate attention of customer security teams.

Figure 2: Model breach log details showing sustained, repeated connectivity to Outlaw affiliated endpoint over port 443, indicating potential C2 activity.

Crypto-mining

In almost every incident of Outlaw identified across the fleet, Darktrace detected some form of cryptocurrency mining activity. Devices affected by Outlaw were consistently observed making anomalous connections to external endpoints associated with crypto-mining operations. Furthermore, the Minergate protocol appeared consistently across hosts; even when devices did not make direct crypto-mining commands, such hosts attempted connections to external entities that were known to support crypto-mining operations.

Figure 3: Advanced Search results showing a sudden spike in mining activity from a device observed connecting to Outlaw-affiliated IP addresses. Such crypto-mining activity was observed consistently across analyzed incidents.

Is Outlaw Using New Tactics?

While in the past, Outlaw activity was identified through a systematic kill chain, recent investigations conducted by Darktrace show significant deviations from this.

For instance, affected devices do not necessarily follow the previously outlined kill chain directly as they did previously. Instead, Darktrace observed affected devices exhibiting these phases in differing orders, repeating steps, or missing out attack phases entirely.

It is essential to study such variation in the kill chain to learn more about the threat of Outlaw and how threat actors are continuing to use it is varying ways. These discrepancies in kill chain elements are likely impacted by visibility into the networks and devices of Darktrace customers, with some relevant activity falling outside of Darktrace’s purview. This is particularly true for internet-exposed devices and hosts that repeatedly performed the same anomalous activity (such as making Minergate requests). Moreover, some devices involved in Outlaw activity may have already been compromised prior to Darktrace’s visibility into the network. As such, these conclusions must be evaluated with a degree of uncertainty.

SSH Activity

Although external SSH connectivity was apparent in some of the incidents detected by Darktrace, it was not directly related to brute-forcing activity. Affected devices did receive anomalous incoming SSH connections, however, wide ranging SSH failed connectivity following the initiation of mining operations by compromised devices was not readily apparent across analyzed compromises. Connections over port 22 were more frequently associated with beaconing and/or C2 activity to endpoints associated with Outlaw, than with potential brute-forcing. As such, Darktrace could not, with high confidence correlate such SSH activity to brute-forcing. This could suggest that threat actors are now portioning or rotation of botnet devices for different operations, for example dividing between botnet expansion and mining operations.

Command line tools

In cases of Outlaw investigated by Darktrace, there was also a degree of variability involving the tools used to retrieve payloads. On the networks of customers affected by Outlaw, Darktrace DETECT identified the use of user agents and command line tools that it considered to be out of character for the network and its devices.

When retrieving the Dota malware payload or shell script data, compromised devices frequently relied on numerous versions of wget and curl user agents. Although the use of such tools as a tactic cannot be definitively linked to the crypto-mining campaign, the employment of varying and/or outdated native command line tools attests to the procedural flexibility of Outlaw campaigns, and its potential for continued evolution.

Figure 4: Breach log data showing use of curl and wget tools to connect to IP addresses associated with Outlaw.

Outlaw in 2023

Given Outlaw’s widespread notoriety and its continued activities, it is likely to remain a prominent threat to organizations and security teams across the threat landscape in 2023 and beyond.

As Darktrace has observed within its customer base from late 2022 through early 2023, activity linked with the Outlaw cryptocurrency mining campaign continues to transpire, offering security teams and research a renewed look at how it has evolved and adapted over the years. While many of its features and tactics appear to have remained consistent, Darktrace has identified numerous signs of Outlaw deviating from its previously known activities.

While relying on previously established IoCs and known tactics from previous campaigns will go some way to protecting an organization’s network from Outlaw compromises, there is a greater need than ever to go further than this. Rather than depending on a list of known-bads or traditional signatures and rules, Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection and unparallel autonomous response capabilities mean it is uniquely positioned to DETECT and RESPOND to Outlaw activity, regardless of how it evolves in the future.

Credit to: Adam Potter, Cyber Analyst, Nahisha Nobregas, SOC Analyst, and Ryan Traill, Threat Content Lead

Relevant DETECT Model Breaches:

Compliance / Incoming SSH  

Device / New User Agent and New IP

Device / New User Agent  

Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname  

Compromise / Crypto Currency Mining Activity  

Anomalous File / Internet Facing System File Download  

Anomalous Server Activity / New User Agent from Internet Facing System  

Anomalous File / Zip or Gzip from Rare External Location  

Anomalous File / Script from Rare External Location  

Anomalous Connection / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint  

Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections  

Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server  

Compromise / Sustained TCP Beaconing Activity To Rare Endpoint

Indicators of Compromise

Indicator - Type - Description

/dota3.tar.gz​

File  URI​

Outlaw  payload​

/tddwrt7s.sh​

File  URI​

Outlaw  payload​

73e5dbafa25946ed636e68d1733281e63332441d​

SHA1  Hash​

Outlaw  payload​

debian-package[.]center​

Hostname​

Outlaw  C2 endpoint​

161.35.236[.]24​

IP  address​

Outlaw  C2 endpoint​

138.68.115[.]96​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

67.205.134[.]224​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

138.197.212[.]204​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]59 ​

IP  address​

Possible  Outlaw C2 endpoint​

45.9.148[.]117​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]125​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]129​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]99 ​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

45.9.148[.]234​

IP  address​

Possible  Outlaw C2 endpoint​

45.9.148[.]236​

IP  address​

Possible  Outlaw C2 endpoint​

159.203.102[.]122​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

159.203.85[.]196​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

159.223.235[.]198​

IP  address​

Outlaw C2  endpoint​

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic -Technique

Initial Access -T1190  Exploit - Public Facing Application

Command and Control - T1071 - Application - Layer Protocol

T1071.001 - Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols

Impact - T1496 Resource Hijacking

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
Adam Potter
Senior Cyber Analyst

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September 30, 2025

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

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What is Vendor Email Compromise?

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

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

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

Why traditional defenses fall short

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

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

How does Darktrace detect vendor compromise?

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

Different campaigns, common traits

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

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

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

A legitimate file sharing site used in phishing emails to host a secondary malicious link.
Figure 1: A legitimate file sharing site used in phishing emails to host a secondary malicious link.
Another example of a legitimate file sharing endpoint sent in a phishing email and used to host a malicious link.
Figure 2: Another example of a legitimate file sharing endpoint sent in a phishing email and used to host a malicious link.

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

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

Fake Microsoft login page designed to harvest credentials.
Figure 3: Fake Microsoft login page designed to harvest credentials.
Phishing kit with likely AI-generated image, designed to harvest user credentials. The URL uses ‘s3cure0line’ instead of ‘secureonline’, a subtle misspelling intended to deceive users.
Figure 4: Phishing kit with likely AI-generated image, designed to harvest user credentials. The URL uses ‘s3cure0line’ instead of ‘secureonline’, a subtle misspelling intended to deceive users.

Darktrace Anomaly Detection

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out-of-character behavior caught in real-time

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key takeaways for defenders

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

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

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

Appendices

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence  

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

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

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping  

Tactic – Technique – Sub-Technique  

Initial Access - Phishing – (T1566)  

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cybersecurity landscape evolves rapidly, and blog content may become outdated or superseded. We reserve the right to update, modify, or remove any content

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October 1, 2025

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

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The challenge of convergence without clarity

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

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

The breakthrough with Darktrace / OT

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

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

A dashboard built for OT engineers

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

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

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

Full-spectrum coverage across endpoints, sensors and protocols

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

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

  1. Identify vulnerabilities and OS data, which is leveraged by OT Risk Management for risk scoring and patching prioritization, removing the need for third-party CVE collection.
  1. Surface novel threats using Self-Learning AI that standalone Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) would miss.
  1. Extend Cyber AI Analyst investigations through to the endpoint root cause.

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

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

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

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

Integrated risk and governance workflows

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

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

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

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

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

The real-world impact for defenders

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

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

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

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

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

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About the author
Pallavi Singh
Product Marketing Manager, OT Security & Compliance
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