December 7, 2023

How Darktrace Triumphed Over MyKings Botnet

Darktrace has provided full visibility over the MyKings botnet kill chain from the beginning of its infections to the eventual cryptocurrency mining activity.

Written by

Oluwatosin Aturaka

Analyst Team Lead, Cambridge

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

Oluwatosin Aturaka

Analyst Team Lead, Cambridge

Dec 2023

Botnets: A persistent cyber threat

Since their appearance in the wild over three decades ago, botnets have consistently been the attack vector of choice for many threat actors. The most prevalent of these attack vectors are distributed denial of service (DDoS) and phishing campaigns. Their persistent nature means that even if a compromised device in identified, attackers can continue to operate by using the additional compromised devices they will likely have on the target network. Similarly, command and control (C2) infrastructure can easily be restructured between infected systems, making it increasingly difficult to remove the infection.

MyKings Botnet

One of the most prevalent and sophisticated examples in recent years is the MyKings botnet, also known as Smominru or DarkCloud. Darktrace has observed numerous cases of MyKings botnet compromises across multiple customer environments in several different industries as far back as August 2022. The diverse tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and sophisticated kill chains employed by MyKings botnet may prove a challenge to traditional rule and signature-based detections.

However, Darktrace’s anomaly-centric approach enabled it to successfully detect a wide-range of indicators of compromise (IoCs) related to the MyKings botnet and bring immediate awareness to customer security teams, as it demonstrated on the network of multiple customers between March and August 2023.

Background on MyKings Botnet

MyKings has been active and spreading steadily since 2016 resulting in over 520,000 infections worldwide.^[1] Although verified attribution of the botnet remains elusive, the variety of targets and prevalence of crypto-mining software on affected devices suggests the threat group behind the malware is financially motivated. The operators behind MyKings appear to be highly opportunistic, with attacks lacking an obvious specific target industry. Across Darktrace’s customer base, the organizations affected were representative of multiple industries such as entertainment, mining, education, information technology, health, and transportation.

Given its longevity, the MyKings botnet has unsurprisingly evolved since its first appearance years ago. Initial analyses of the botnet showed that the primary crypto-related activity on infected devices was the installation of Monero-mining software. However, in 2019 researchers discovered a new module within the MyKings malware that enabled clipboard-jacking, whereby the malware replaces a user's copied cryptowallet address with the operator's own wallet address in order to siphon funds.^[2]

Similar to other botnets such as the Outlaw crypto-miner, the MyKings botnet can also kill running processes of unrelated malware on the compromised hosts that may have resulted from prior infection.^[3] MyKings has also developed a comprehensive set of persistence techniques, including: the deployment of bootkits, initiating the botnet immediately after a system reboot, configuring Registry run keys, and generating multiple Scheduled Tasks and WMI listeners.^[4] MyKings have also been observed rotating tools and payloads over time to propagate the botnet. For example, some operators have been observed utilizing PCShare, an open-source remote access trojan (RAT) customized to conduct C2 services, execute commands, and download mining software^[5].

Darktrace Coverage

Across observed customer networks between March and August 2023, Darktrace identified the MyKings botnet primarily targeting Windows-based servers that supports services like MySQL, MS-SQL, Telnet, SSH, IPC, WMI, and Remote Desktop (RDP). In the initial phase of the attack, the botnet would initiate a variety of attacks against a target including brute-forcing and exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities on exposed servers. The botnet delivers a variety of payloads to the compromised systems including worm downloaders, trojans, executable files and scripts.

This pattern of activity was detected across the network of one particular Darktrace customer in the education sector in early March 2023. Unfortunately, this customer did not have Darktrace RESPOND™ deployed on their network at the time of the attack, meaning the MyKings botnet was able to move through the cyber kill chain ultimately achieving its goal, which in this case was mining cryptocurrency.

Initial Access

On March 6, Darktrace observed an internet-facing SQL server receiving an unusually large number of incoming MySQL connections from the rare external endpoint 171.91.76[.]31 via port 1433. While it is not possible to confirm whether these suspicious connections represented the exact starting point of the infection, such a sudden influx of SQL connection from a rare external endpoint could be indicative of a malicious attempt to exploit vulnerabilities in the server's SQL database or perform password brute-forcing to gain unauthorized access. Given that MyKings typically spreads primarily through such targeting of internet-exposed devices, the pattern of activity is consistent with potential initial access by MyKings.^[6]

Initial Command and Control

The device then proceeded to initiate a series of repeated HTTP connections between March 6 and March 10^, to the domain www[.]back0314[.]ru (107.148.239[.]111). These connections included HTTP GET requests featuring URIs such as ‘/back.txt', suggesting potential beaconing and C2 communication. The device continued this connectivity to the external host over the course of four days, primarily utilizing destination ports 80, and 6666. While port 80 is commonly utilized for HTTP connections, port 6666 is a non-standard port for the protocol. Such connectivity over non-standard ports can indicate potential detection evasion and obfuscation tactics by the threat actors. During this time, the device also initiated repeated connections to additional malicious external endpoints with seemingly algorithmically generated hostnames such as pc.pc0416[.]xyz.

Darktrace UI image — Figure 1: Model breach showing details of the malicious domain generation algorithm (DGA) connections.

Tool Transfer

While this beaconing activity was taking place, the affected device also began to receive potential payloads from unusual external endpoints. On April 29, the device made an HTTP GET request for “/power.txt” to the endpoint 192.236.160[.]237, which was later discovered to have multiple open-source intelligence (OSINT) links to malware. Power.txt is a shellcode written in PowerShell which is downloaded and executed with the purpose of disabling Windows Defenders related functions.^[7] After the initial script was downloaded (and likely executed), Darktrace went on to detect the device making a series of additional GET requests for several varying compressed and executable files. For example, the device made HTTP requests for '/pld/cmd.txt' to the external endpoint 104.233.224[.]173. In response the external server provided numerous files, including ‘u.exe’, and ‘upsup4.exe’ for download, both of which share file names with previously identified MyKings payloads.

MyKings deploys a diverse array of payloads to expand the botnet and secure a firm position within a compromised system. This multi-faceted approach may render conventional security measures less effective due to the intricacies of and variety of payloads involved in compromises. Darktrace, however, does not rely on static or outdated lists of IoCs in order to detect malicious activity. Instead, DETECT’s Self-Learning AI allows it to identify emerging compromise activity by recognizing the subtle deviations in an affected device’s behavior that could indicate it has fallen into the hands of malicious actors.

Figure 2: External site summary of the endpoint 103.145.106[.]242 showing the rarity of connectivity to the external host.

Achieving Objectives – Crypto-Mining

Several weeks after the initial payloads were delivered and beaconing commenced, Darktrace finally detected the initiation of crypto-mining operations. On May 27, the originally compromised server connected to the rare domain other.xmrpool[.]ru over port 1081. As seen in the domain name, this endpoint appears to be affiliated with pool mining activity and the domain has various OSINT affiliations with the cryptocurrency Monero coin. During this connection, the host was observed passing Monero credentials, activity which parallels similar mining operations observed on other customer networks that had been compromised by the MyKings botnet.

Although mining activity may not pose an immediate or urgent concern for security unauthorized cryptomining on devices can result in detrimental consequences, such as compromised hardware integrity, elevated energy costs, and reduced productivity, and even potential involvement in money laundering.

Figure 3: Event breach log showing details of the connection to the other.xmrpool[.]ru endpoint associated with cryptocurrency mining activity.

Conclusion

Detecting future iterations of the MyKings botnet will likely demand a shift away from an overreliance on traditional rules and signatures and lists of “known bads”, instead requiring organizations to employ AI-driven technology that can identify suspicious activity that represents a deviation from previously established patterns of life.

Despite the diverse range of payloads, malicious endpoints, and intricate activities that constitute a typical MyKing botnet compromise, Darktrace was able successfully detect multiple critical phases within the MyKings kill chain. Given the evolving nature of the MyKings botnet, it is highly probable the botnet will continue to expand and adapt, leveraging new tactics and technologies. By adopting Darktrace’s product of suites, including Darktrace DETECT, organizations are well-positioned to identify these evolving threats as soon as they emerge and, when coupled with the autonomous response technology of Darktrace RESPOND, threats like the MyKings botnet can be stopped in their tracks before they can achieve their ultimate goals.

Credit to: Oluwatosin Aturaka, Analyst Team Lead, Cambridge, Adam Potter, Cyber Analyst

Appendix

IoC Table

IoC - Type - Description + Confidence

162.216.150[.]108- IP - C2 Infrastructure

103.145.106[.]242 - IP - C2 Infrastructure

137.175.56[.]104 - IP - C2 Infrastructure

138.197.152[.]201 - IP - C2 Infrastructure

139.59.74[.]135 - IP - C2 Infrastructure

pc.pc0416[.]xyz - Domain - C2 Infrastructure (DGA)

other.xmrpool[.]ru - Domain - Cryptomining Endpoint

xmrpool[.]ru - Domain - Cryptomining Endpoint

103.145.106[.]55 - IP - Cryptomining Endpoint

ntuser[.]rar - Zipped File - Payload

/xmr1025[.]rar - Zipped File - Payload

/20201117[.]rar - Zipped File - Payload

wmi[.]txt - File - Payload

u[.]exe - Executable File - Payload

back[.]txt - File - Payload

upsupx2[.]exe - Executable File - Payload

cmd[.]txt - File - Payload

power[.]txt - File - Payload

ups[.]html - File - Payload

xmr1025.rar - Zipped File - Payload

171.91.76[.]31- IP - Possible Initial Compromise Endpoint

www[.]back0314[.]ru - Domain - Probable C2 Infrastructure

107.148.239[.]111 - IP - Probable C2 Infrastructure

194.67.71[.]99 - IP- Probable C2 Infrastructure

Darktrace DETECT Model Breaches

Device / Initial Breach Chain Compromise
Anomalous File / Masqueraded File Transfer (x37)
Compromise / Large DNS Volume for Suspicious Domain
Compromise / Fast Beaconing to DGA
Device / Large Number of Model Breaches
Anomalous File / Multiple EXE from Rare External Locations (x30)
Compromise / Beacon for 4 Days (x2)
Anomalous Server Activity / New User Agent from Internet Facing System
Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname
Anomalous Server Activity / New Internet Facing System
Anomalous File / EXE from Rare External Location (x37)
Device / Large Number of Connections to New Endpoints
Anomalous Server Activity / Server Activity on New Non-Standard Port (x3)
Device / Threat Indicator (x3)
Unusual Activity / Unusual External Activity
Compromise / Crypto Currency Mining Activity (x37)
Compliance / Internet Facing SQL Server
Device / Anomalous Scripts Download Followed By Additional Packages
Device / New User Agent

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

ATT&CK Technique - Technique ID

Reconnaissance – T1595.002 Vulnerability Scanning

Resource Development – T1608 Stage Capabilities

Resource Development – T1588.001 Malware

Initial Access – T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application

Command and Control – T15568.002 Domain Generated Algorithms

Command and Control – T1571 Non-Standard Port

Execution – T1047 Windows Management Instrumentation

Execution – T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter

Persistence – T1542.003 Pre-OS Boot

Impact – T1496 Resource Hijacking

References

^[1] https://www.binarydefense.com/resources/threat-watch/mykings-botnet-is-growing-and-remains-under-the-radar/

^[2] https://therecord.media/a-malware-botnet-has-made-more-than-24-7-million-since-2019

^[3] https://www.darktrace.com/blog/outlaw-returns-uncovering-returning-features-and-new-tactics

^[4] https://www.sophos.com/en-us/medialibrary/pdfs/technical-papers/sophoslabs-uncut-mykings-report.pdf

^[5] https://www.antiy.com/response/20190822.html

^[6] https://ethicaldebuggers.com/mykings-botnet/

^[7] https://ethicaldebuggers.com/mykings-botnet/

執筆者

Oluwatosin Aturaka

Analyst Team Lead, Cambridge

Inside the SOC

Written by

Oluwatosin Aturaka

Analyst Team Lead, Cambridge

•

August 3, 2026

Nathaniel Jones

SVP, Global Threat Intelligence

•

August 4, 2026

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August 4, 2026

Extending AI Security Visibility with Darktrace and Microsoft Agent 365

AI agents are rapidly becoming embedded in everyday business operations, helping employees automate workflows, access information, and accelerate decision-making. As organizations embrace agentic AI, security teams face a growing challenge: understanding how AI is being used, what agents can access, and where risk may emerge.

As agents take on more business-critical work, security teams often need to move across multiple portals to understand risks spanning identity, data, and threat activity. This fragmented view can make it difficult to assess an agent's overall risk posture and determine where attention is needed. Organizations need a way to bring these signals together without disrupting existing security investments or workflows.

Today, Darktrace is announcing an integration between Darktrace / SECURE AI and Microsoft Agent 365 that brings Darktrace's Adaptive AI-driven risk signals directly into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. By extending the visibility and risk understanding provided by Darktrace / SECURE AI into the Microsoft ecosystem, organizations can gain a more unified understanding of AI agent risk across their environments.

As one of the first security companies to partner with Microsoft to contribute third-party risk signals to the Agent Registry, Darktrace is helping shape how organizations understand and manage AI agent risk.

Extending visibility into the Microsoft Agent 365 experience

Microsoft Agent 365 provides administrators with a centralized registry of AI agents operating within their environment. As organizations expand their use of AI agents, this centralized visibility becomes increasingly important for governance and oversight.

This new integration extends that visibility by allowing Darktrace-generated risk signals to be surfaced directly within the Microsoft Agent 365 experience. By combining Microsoft's agent management and security capabilities with Darktrace's AI-powered risk analysis, organizations gain greater awareness of potential security concerns associated with AI agents operating across their environments.

By integrating Darktrace telemetry into Agent 365, customers can:

Surface Darktrace-detected risks and signals alongside Microsoft-native signals in a single interface

Identify potentially compromised or anomalous AI agents more quickly

Gain unified understanding of context and agent behavior

This approach reinforces a single control plane for AI security while allowing organizations to continue leveraging existing investments across both platforms.

Why unified visibility of AI agent risk signals matters

As AI adoption accelerates across Microsoft environments, organizations must manage new forms of behavior, access patterns, and risk. Security teams need more than inventories and permissions. They need visibility into how AI systems operate and how risk evolves over time.

This integration addresses a critical gap: how to bring behavioral AI security insights into the same control plane as identity, access, and agent management.

With Darktrace and Microsoft Agent 365 together, organizations benefit from:

Unified visibility: A single pane of glass for understanding AI agent risk signals across Microsoft and Darktrace signals

Faster detection of abnormal agent behavior: Darktrace's Adaptive AI highlights deviations that may not be captured by static controls

Operational efficiency: Security teams can triage and prioritize risk signals without switching between systems

Stronger trust in AI deployments: Clear attribution, context, and investigation pathways improve confidence in AI agent usage

Extending Microsoft's AI security model, not replacing it

Securing AI requires a layered approach that combines governance, visibility, threat detection, and risk management. This integration is designed to complement Microsoft's security capabilities, not duplicate them.

Through Darktrace / SECURE AI, Darktrace contributes:

Identification of risk via advanced prompt analysis

Behavioral anomaly detection across AI agents

Cross-environment threat correlation

Autonomous insight into emerging or unknown risks

Microsoft provides:

Centralized agent management

Identity and access governance

Native detection of risk signals and enforcement capabilities

Together, these capabilities create a more complete, layered approach to securing AI-driven enterprises. Organizations gain the governance and policy controls needed to manage AI adoption while benefiting from continuous visibility into how AI is used across the business.

Building the future of secure AI

As AI agents become more deeply embedded in business processes, organizations need more than inventories and static controls. They need to understand how AI is being used, how agents behave, and where risk is emerging across the enterprise.

Darktrace / SECURE AI delivers that understanding through continuous visibility into AI activity, helping security teams assess intent, identify behavioral drift, and uncover emerging risk across both human and agent-driven workflows. Powered by Adaptive AI, it provides the context needed to secure AI as it evolves.

The integration with Microsoft Agent 365 extends those insights into the workflows organizations already use. Agent 365 provides a unified control plane for governing and securing AI agents, while Darktrace contributes complementary behavioral risk signals that can be surfaced within the Agent 365 experience. Together, they give customers broader context on agent activity and risk while preserving the value of their existing Microsoft and Darktrace investments.

As enterprises move from AI experimentation to AI-powered execution, Microsoft and Darktrace help bring together governance, compliance, behavioral understanding, and oversight in a unified approach to AI security. For organizations adopting Microsoft 365 E7, Darktrace / SECURE AI further strengthens that foundation by providing continuous visibility into AI activity, agent behavior, and emerging risk as AI adoption scales.

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August 3, 2026

Why Trust is the New Attack Surface: Darktrace’s Mid-Year Threat Update 2026

In early 2026, a React2Shell honeypot purpose-built by Darktrace analysts was compromised in less than two hours after deployment. That single data point captures the pace of the threat landscape in the first half of 2026, but speed tells only part of the story.

The shift over the past six months has moved away from traditional malware and vulnerability-centric attacks and toward the abuse of trusted identities, platforms, and infrastructure. Identities, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms, cloud entitlements, automation frameworks, and non-human identities have become the preferred attack paths as organizations adopt AI at scale.

Attackers are increasingly operating inside the relationships, services, and authenticated channels that defenders and users are conditioned to rely on, rather than breaking in from the outside.

What has changed since 2025?

In 2025, identity became the new perimeter as attackers increasingly bypassed traditional exploitation in favor of trusted accounts, SaaS platforms, and emerging AI-enabled tradecraft. The first half of 2026 marks the next stage of that evolution. Identity remains central, but the trust challenge now extends far beyond accounts to email authentication, cloud entitlements, software supply chains, AI gateways, remote administration tooling, and non-human identities.

Theme	2025 (Mid-Year / Annual)	H1 2026
Identity	Credentials remained the weak link; identity emerged as the new perimeter.	Identity remains the entry point, but trust has become the new attack surface.
Cloud & SaaS	SaaS-targeted ransomware continued to rise.	Cloud and SaaS became the attacker's preferred operating environment.
AI	Large Language Models (LLMs) were suspected of influencing phishing shifts.	LLM-generated malware, compromised AI proxies, and the abuse of AI identities emerged.
Attack Surface Scale & Speed	Exponential growth of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs), with public proof-of-concepts appearing faster.	Cloud and AI adoption expanded the attack surface, while AI accelerated exploitation. One honeypot was compromised in under two hours.
Supply Chain	Legitimate services were increasingly abused.	Trusted maintainers and CI/CD workflows were weaponized.

Identity and email: trust signals under pressure

Email remains the most reliable route to a trusted identity, and the data shows attackers investing in quality over noise. In the first half of 2026, 67% of phishing emails passed DMARC. Authentication alone is no longer sufficient to stop most phishing attempts. VIP users were targeted in 25.8% of phishing, consistent with 2025's “over 25%” figure, but drifting upward throughout the period. Crucially, phishing sophistication continued to increase: 37% of phishing contained a high volume of text, up from 32% in the first half of 2025, while 39% featured novel social engineering techniques, suggesting attackers are further customizing to specific targets.

The most prevalent threats affecting Darktrace customers were also among the most identity-centric: information stealers, with dedicated StealC and AMOS campaigns running through the half-year. Their prevalence is, fundamentally, an identity story. Credentials harvested by infostealers often become the initial access vector for far higher-impact intrusions later in the attack chain. Crucially, the delivery method rarely requires exploitation of a technical weakness. ClickFix social engineering, which tricks users into running malicious code themselves, remained a common distribution route. One recent campaign impacted Darktrace customers across 17 countries, with the United States the most affected. The compromise did not begin with a software flaw, but with a trusted user taking a trusted action.

Supply chain: Trust weaponized at scale

March and April reinforced the same lesson: trust has become a supply-chain vulnerability. The Axios compromise abused trust in a widely used maintainer, while the Trivy campaign leveraged trusted CI/CD infrastructure, release artifacts, and container images to push malicious code through legitimate development workflows.

The clearest example was a February–March campaign in which devices downloaded malicious payloads while using Hola VPN, later linked to an issue within Hola's own delivery pipeline. Darktrace's Threat Research team identified associated activity through recurring anomalous behavior across multiple customers before a public advisory was released.

More recently, attackers abused legitimate blockchain infrastructure to distribute infostealers, including AMOS and Phexia. Popular tools like VPNs, often used by users with limited security resources, combined with legitimate command-and-control (C2) infrastructure enables attackers to reach a far wider victim base while frustrating defenders who cannot simply block the associated endpoints.

For defenders, the challenge is no longer identifying malicious infrastructure, but recognizing when trusted infrastructure begins behaving maliciously.

Cloud and SaaS: from target to terrain

Through May and June, activity involving device registration, cloud data theft, SaaS abuse, RDP expansion, and remote management tooling suggested that attackers increasingly view cloud and SaaS not simply as targets, but as their preferred operating environment.

In one Darktrace case a single compromised SaaS account triggered activity across email, SaaS, and network layers, including inbox rule changes, phishing propagation, and connections to suspicious infrastructure. None of these indicators were decisive in isolation, but together they revealed a clear intrusion. Increasingly, attackers do not need to bypass trust controls in these environments; they inherit them through compromised identities, delegated access, and legitimate administration tools. This is the natural progression of 2025's SaaS-targeted ransomware trend: the platforms on which businesses operate are increasingly the same platforms on which adversaries operate.

AI: accelerant, attack surface, and trusted but risky actor

If trust is the attack surface, AI is where that surface is expanding fastest. Across the Darktrace customer base, AI service connections per deployment rose 13% in the first half of 2026, surpassing 16 million connections, while the typical organization now interacts with seven different AI providers. AI is no longer at the edge of the enterprise; it is embedded in day-to-day business operations. That shift creates three distinct problems, all of which were observed by Darktrace in the first half of 2026.

1. AI as an attack multiplier

Darktrace identified AI-generated malware exploiting React2Shell, in which an attacker used an LLM to produce working exploit code and deploy it at scale. Similar activity is increasingly appearing across the wider threat landscape, suggesting that the barrier to effective offensive operations is collapsing. As demonstrated by the recent JadePuffer case, in which an agentic threat actor exploited a vulnerability in an internet-facing server before launching a fully automated ransomware attack, AI is accelerating the path from vulnerability disclosure to operational exploitation [1].

2. AI as an attack surface

The AI layer itself is now worth probing. At an automation technology manufacturer, a compromised LLM proxy was used as a steppingstone toward additional AI services; when that failed, the attacker pivoted to cryptomining. Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst pieced the intrusion together and Darktrace’s Managed Threat Detection service alerted the customer, containing it before it could progress further. The practitioner lesson is clear: treat AI gateways, proxies, and model endpoints as production cloud workloads because attackers already do.

3. AI as a trusted but potentially risky actor

Darktrace / SECURE AI observations suggest the most common real-world risk is quieter still: employees entering personal identifiable information (PII), tax records, identity documents, company financial data, HR records, and personal medical data into LLM prompts, alongside widespread shadow AI use and increased AI usage from mobile devices. Across nearly 280,000 prompts submitted by almost 28,000 users over 28 days, Darktrace identified that approximately 1% of these prompts (or 2,945 instances) contained sensitive data*.

_{*Prompt data was analyzed in aggregate and anonymized form to protect user privacy.}

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For defenders, the challenge is context: knowing when legitimate business use crosses into material risk without breaking privacy or user trust. As organizations increasingly trust AI systems to access, process, and share sensitive information at machine speed, AI must be secured and monitored alongside identities, applications, and cloud infrastructure.

Speed and geopolitics: faster operations, longer-term objectives

Several investigations in the first half of the year showed how quickly attackers operationalize newly disclosed vulnerabilities, validating exploitation through Out-of-Band Application Security Testing (OAST) infrastructure and trusted cloud services before patching cycles can be completed. React2Shell was compromised in two hours, while BeyondTrust exploitation followed in less than a day. Against this backdrop, state-aligned actors continue to prioritize long-term access, intelligence collection, and pre-positioning through legitimate services, cloud infrastructure, and trusted relationships. Operations linked to China, Russia, Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) shared a common characteristic: a focus on persistence and strategic positioning rather than immediate disruption.

China: Darktrace observed Chinese-nexus actors prioritizing long-term access through trusted services, dynamic-link library (DLL) sideloading, and modular intrusion chains consistent with activity documented in Crimson Echo reporting and associated with Twill Typhoon tradecraft.

Iran: Darktrace's ZionSiphon investigation highlighted Iranian-linked interest in operational technology (OT) environments, blending espionage objectives with infrastructure disruption capabilities.

Russia: Darktrace investigations, alongside wider industry reporting, highlighted Russian reliance on trusted relationships and supply-chain targeting for long-term intelligence on Ukraine related support [2].

DPRK: Darktrace observed DPRK-linked activity combining rapid vulnerability weaponization with persistent access techniques, including Axios supply-chain compromise, React2Shell exploitation and stealthy macOS intrusions

While objectives differed across actors, the tradecraft was remarkably consistent: trusted services, legitimate infrastructure, and persistent access remained more valuable than immediate disruption.

The defender shift

Across identity compromise, supply-chain attacks, SaaS abuse, AI infrastructure targeting, and state-aligned operations, attackers increasingly succeed by operating through trusted systems rather than breaking through defensive controls. Trusted users, trusted software, trusted infrastructure, and increasingly trusted AI systems all became viable attack paths.

For defenders, the challenge is no longer simply determining whether an action is allowed; it is determining whether that action makes sense in its wider context. Authentication, reputation, and provenance remain important, but they are no longer sufficient on their own. As attackers increasingly operate within trusted systems, the strongest signal is often a behavioral deviation: identifying when trusted activity no longer aligns with expected behavior.

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Credit to Nathaniel Jones (SVP, Global Threat Intelligence), Emma Foulger (Global Threat Research Operations Lead), Justin Torres (Senior Cyber Analyst), Daniel Levy (Threat Hunting Data Scientist)

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Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)

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Appendix 1: Threat Research Methodology

Darktrace’s Threat Research team conducts extensive research across customer deployments to identify active threats, pinpoint key Indicators of Compromise (IoCs), and provide relevant threat intelligence. This research leverages Darktrace’s anomaly-based detection and involves thorough analysis and contextualization by the Threat Research team. Detected threats are promptly reported to the relevant customer security teams. When a customer has Darktrace’s Autonomous Response technology enabled, these threats are swiftly mitigated to prevent escalation.

Between January 1 and June 30, 2026, Darktrace investigated a wide range of cyber threats across its customer base. Many were identified as campaign-like activities targeting multiple customers, where clusters of similar tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and IoCs were seen affecting a significant number of customers within a short timeframe.

Statistics related to email are derived from aggregated Darktrace / EMAIL data across all cloud-hosted customer deployments between January 1 and June 30, 2026. Standard data-quality filtering was applied to exclude anomalous observations prior to aggregation. Regional statistics are based on relevant subsets of this dataset.

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Appendix 2: Campaigns - Regional and Sector Trends

While the above broad themes defined the threat landscape over the last six months, campaign clustering across the Darktrace customer base revealed how they manifested differently across sectors, regions, and industries.

Darktrace’s Threat Research team investigates a range of threats affecting its customer base. Through this research, campaign-like clusters of activity have been identified, in which common tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), as well as infrastructure, are observed impacting a significant number of customers within a short timeframe.

Sectors and industries are classified using the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system to ensure consistent categorization. While the sector and regional insights in this report reflect broader global trends, they are also influenced by the distribution of Darktrace's customer base. For example, Finance, Manufacturing, and Education are strongly represented among Darktrace customers, which may result in a higher number of observed cases in these sectors. This reflects customer distribution rather than necessarily indicating elevated sector-specific risk. Similarly, regional trends may be influenced by the geographic distribution of Darktrace customers.

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Analysis of campaign clusters identified by the Darktrace Threat Research team during the first half of 2026 revealed distinct regional trends.

Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) dominated with 60% of all campaign cluster cases targeting this region.
The Americas (AMS) was the next most affected region, with 30% of campaign cluster cases.
The Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region was less affected by campaign clusters, potentially indicating that threat actors placed a lower priority on the region and instead focused their efforts elsewhere.

Sector targeting also varied considerably by region:

In EMEA, the Information and Communication was the most affected by a significant margin, representing 25% of all cases.
In contrast, AMS targeting was more evenly distributed, with the Education, Public administration and defence, and Financial Insurance activities sectors all forming over 20% of AMS regional cases.
Across APJ, campaign activity was spread more equally, with no single sector emerging as a dominant target.

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Several countries also stood out within their respective regions:

The United States accounted for 60% of all campaign clusters within AMS.
Japan represented 40% of campaign customer cases across APJ.
In EMEA, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe each accounted for 23% of identified cases, both being involved in a variety of campaign types.

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Inside the SOC & Threat Research 2026 Monthly Progression: From Access to Impact

Month	Dominant Themes
January	Voice phishing, VPS infrastructure, WebSocket C2, RMM abuse, ransomware, infostealers (StealC), and trojanized installers (7-Zip).
February	Voice phishing, VPN intrusion, edge infrastructure compromise (BeyondTrust), and RMM abuse.
March	Sustained supply chain compromise (Hola VPN, Axios, Trivy), malicious browser extensions, phishing, and discovery tools.
April	Account creation abuse, payload delivery, VPN credential abuse, Fortinet exploitation, and botnet activity.
May	PowerShell, EtherHiding, data exfiltration, VPN access, business email compromise (BEC), ClickFix, and infostealers (AMOS).
June	RDP abuse, device registration, RMM usage, voice phishing, cloud data theft, botnet activity, blockchain abuse, ClickFix, and infostealers (AMOS).