Press Release
Updated statement regarding LockBit claims
We have completed a thorough security investigation following yesterday’s tweets by LockBit claiming they had compromised Darktrace’s internal systems. We can confirm that there has been no compromise of our systems or any of our affiliate systems. Our service to our customers remains uninterrupted and is operating as normal and no further action is required.
Press Release
Statement regarding LockBit claims
Earlier this morning we became aware of tweets from LockBit, the cyber-criminal gang, claiming that they had compromised Darktrace’s internal security systems and had accessed our data. Our security teams have run a full review of our internal systems and can see no evidence of compromise. None of the LockBit social media posts link to any compromised Darktrace data. We will continue to monitor the situation extremely closely, but based on our current investigations we are confident that our systems remain secure and all customer data is fully protected.
プレスリリース
Over Three-Quarters of Security Professionals Concerned About AI Agent Risk, New Darktrace Report Finds
- 73% say AI-powered threats are already having a significant impact on their organization, in new survey
- Nearly half of security professionals feel unprepared to defend against AI-driven attacks, despite 92% saying these threats are driving major upgrades to their defenses
- More than three-quarters (77%) of security professionals reported that generative AI is now embedded in their security stack and 96% say AI significantly boosts the speed and efficiency of their work
- Darktrace launches Darktrace / SECURE AI™, a new solution designed to give security teams visibility and control over AI tools and agents in the enterprise
Darktrace, a global leader in AI for cybersecurity, today announced the findings of its 2026 State of AI Cybersecurity Report, examining how the rapid adoption of AI into businesses is changing the nature of cyber risk for global enterprises. The findings highlight increasing concern among cybersecurity professionals about the rise of agentic AI in their organizations, with more than three-quarters (76%) of security professionals surveyed worried about the security implications of integrating AI agents into their organization. That concern is particularly acute at senior levels, with nearly half of security executives (47%) saying they are very or extremely concerned as AI agents increasingly operate with direct access to sensitive data and critical business processes. At the same time, 97% of security leaders agree AI in their own security stack significantly strengthens their ability to defend against bad actors.
Security experts attribute agents’ access to sensitive and proprietary data, their ability to interact directly with critical systems, and a lack of mature governance around their use as key drivers of concern. Data exposure was identified as the top risk (61%), followed by potential violations of data security and privacy regulations (56%) and the misuse or abuse of AI tools (51%). Despite rising risk awareness regarding AI, just 37% of respondent organizations have a formal policy for securely deploying AI, down 8 percentage points from last year’s report.
“Enterprises are embracing AI fast, and while AI tools are helping security teams better defend against attacks, agentic AI introduces a new class of insider risk,” said Issy Richards, VP of Product, Darktrace. “These systems can act with the reach of an employee — accessing sensitive data and triggering business processes — without human context or accountability. Our research shows security leaders are already worried, and this cannot be treated as an afterthought. If AI agents are operating inside your organization, their governance, access controls, and monitoring are a board-level responsibility, not just a technical one.”
AI-Powered Attacks Accelerate
Beyond the manipulation of AI agents, the 2026 State of AI Cybersecurity report highlights growing concern that bad actors are using AI to accelerate and scale cyber attacks. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of security professionals say AI-powered threats are already having a significant impact on their organization. In addition, 87% report that AI is significantly increasing the volume of attacks they face, while 89% say AI is making attacks more sophisticated overall. Separately, 91% of professionals note that AI is making phishing and other social engineering attacks more sophisticated and effective. Hyper-personalized phishing emerges as the AI-powered attack posing the greatest risk (50%), followed closely by automated vulnerability scanning (45%), adaptive malware (40%), and deepfake voice fraud (39%). Despite widespread recognition of these threats, nearly half (46%) admit they feel unprepared to defend against AI-driven attacks, almost unchanged from 45% twelve months ago. 92%, meanwhile, say that these threats are driving major upgrades to their defenses.
AI vs. AI: Defenders Fighting Back
As cyber threats accelerate and IT environments grow more complex, security teams are increasingly turning to AI as a critical weapon in the fight against cybercrime. More than three-quarters (77%) of security professionals reported that generative AI is now embedded in their security stack and nearly all (96%) said that AI significantly boosts the speed and efficiency of their work.
Security teams say AI delivers its greatest value where human analysts struggle most: detecting novel threats and identifying anomalies at speed, with 72% of professionals citing this as the area where AI delivers the greatest impact.
Many organizations are already moving beyond AI that only recommends and toward AI that can take action within defined guardrails. In the Security Operations Center, 14% say they allow AI to act independently, while a further 70% enable AI to take action with human approval; only 13% keep AI limited to recommendations.
Darktrace Brings Visibility and Control to Enterprise AI Adoption with New Solution
In response to the trends reflected in the survey’s findings, and building on its unique Self-Learning AI approach to protecting organizations, Darktrace today also unveiled its latest offering, Darktrace / SECURE AI™. Darktrace / SECURE AI is designed to give security teams visibility and control of how AI tools and agents are being used, what data and systems they can access, and how they behave across the organization. The technology enables security teams to not only manage but safely enable AI usage at scale, across their enterprise.
Darktrace data shows that AI adoption is already creating new visibility gaps across the enterprise. In October, Darktrace observed a 39% month-over-month increase in anomalous data uploads to generative AI services. The average anomalous upload was 75MB, equivalent to around 4,700 pages of documents, significantly increasing the risk of sensitive data leaving the organization unchecked1.
“As AI becomes embedded across core business operations, many organizations are developing a dangerous blind spot,” added Richards. “They no longer have clear visibility into what AI systems can access or how they’re behaving inside the enterprise. Darktrace / SECURE AI isn’t about slowing AI adoption, it’s about giving leaders the visibility and control they need to deploy AI safely, responsibly, and at scale.”
Additional Resources:
- Download the full 2026 State of AI Cybersecurity Report here and check out the Darktrace blog here for more insights behind the data.
- Join the webinar on February 3rd to learn more about how AI is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape.
- To learn more about Darktrace / SECURE AI, check out the full press release here.
About the Darktrace State of AI Cybersecurity Report
Darktrace partnered with AimPoint Group to survey 1,540 cybersecurity leaders and practitioners from 14 different countries including the U.S., U.K, Germany, Australia, Singapore and Japan. The survey was fielded online between October and November 2025. Their roles range from CISO to IT security managers, IT security analysts and incident responders, with the majority of participants holding leadership roles such as CIO, CISO, IT security executive, director, manager, or team lead.
About Darktrace
Darktrace is a global leader in AI for cybersecurity that keeps organizations ahead of the changing threat landscape every day. Founded in 2013, Darktrace provides the essential cybersecurity platform protecting organizations from unknown threats using its proprietary AI that learns from the unique patterns of life for each customer in real-time. The Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform™ delivers a proactive approach to cyber resilience to secure the business across the entire digital estate – from network to cloud to email. It provides pre-emptive visibility into the customer’s security posture, transforms operations with a Cyber AI Analyst™, and detects and autonomously responds to threats in real-time. Breakthrough innovations from our R&D teams in Cambridge, UK, and The Hague, Netherlands have resulted in over 250 patent applications filed. Darktrace’s platform and services are supported by over 2,300 employees around the world who protect nearly 10,000 customers across all major industries globally.
1According to internal Darktrace research
Over Three-Quarters of Security Professionals Concerned About AI Agent Risk, New Darktrace Report Finds
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Darktrace named a Challenger in first Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Email Security Platforms · Evaluated on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute Darktrace, a global leader in AI for cybersecurity,today announces that Darktrace / EMAIL™, has been recognized in thefirst ever Gartner Magic Quadrant™ for Email Security Platforms (ESP) as a Challenger. Chris Kozup, Chief Marketing Officer, Darktrace, said of therecognition: “We are extremely proud to have been recognized in the first MagicQuadrant for ESP. We believe the factthat wehave seen such wide scale adoption is testament to the unique way in which wedevelop products to keep our customers safe from even the most sophisticated emailcompromises. We believe our placement reaffirms our dedication to deliveringexceptional customer service, and innovations that safeguard against the emailchallenges of today—and tomorrow.” Darktrace customers consistently acknowledge its exceptional customersupport, delivered by an award-winning[1]service team. Darktrace has the highest percentage of 5-star ratings with a 4.8rating on Gartner® Peer Insights™ out of 249 reviews as on[MW1] 19th December. We feel this unwavering commitment to customersatisfaction is evident in strong renewal rates and accelerated growth inDarktrace / EMAIL over the past few years, gaining almost 5,000 customers sinceits launch in 2019. Darktrace / EMAIL, one of the fastest-growing emailsecurity products on the market, is built on Darktrace’s unique Self-LearningAI, a multi-layered AI engine that leverages different types of AI includingNLP and behavioral analysis to detect threats, instead of traditional securitymeasures such as signatures and sandboxing. This approach enables Darktrace todetect and stop threats like business email compromise attacks and noveltechniques, including some 56% of which passed through customers’ other emailsecurity layers. This pioneering approach has enabled Darktrace to introduce industry-leadingcapabilities such as QR code analysis and automated incident investigations, alongsidedifferentiated functionality to help teams add new depth to their emailsecurity, including: Account take over and Lateral mail account compromise protection. Contributing yet another layer to the AI behavioural profile for each user, security teams can now spot early symptoms of account compromise or malicious insiders before a link or attachment payload is sent, and exfiltration occur Microsoft Teams security with advanced messaging analysis: Advancing beyond simple text analysis to behavioral and natural language content analysis that tracks context across both email and instant messaging to identify the approximately 38% of phishing, sophisticated social engineering and novel insider threats other solutions fail to capture · Drastically improveend user reporting with Cyber AI Analyst narratives: Real-time awareness training capabilities reduce falsepositives in phishing investigations by up to 60% by providing context specificanalysis of each received email to each employee as they interact with their mail.· MailboxSecurity Assistant to increase security team operational efficiency: All forms ofsecondary investigations can now automatically perform advanced behavioralbrowser analysis and stop malicious links within webpages, reducing manualeffort of security analysts to detecting phishing links, and allowing them to remediateup to 70% more malicious phishing links than before.· AI based,autonomous data loss prevention: to immediately protect organizations from misdirected emails,insider threats, and data loss—both classified and unclassified – using userbehavior and dynamic content analysis to determine sensitivity, removing administrativeoverhead from manual expressions and labeling.Marco Cavallo, IT Manager at Darktrace / EMAIL customer Arpa Industries comments:“During the POV, Darktrace / EMAIL showed how specific attacks weresurgically blocked. We realized that other tools wouldn’t have detected thesethreats.” Darktrace / EMAIL is part of Darktrace’s ActiveAI Security Platform™,offering network, cloud, endpoint, identity and operational technologyprotection from a single shared architecture, all built on Darktrace’s uniqueAI engine – providing a strong, integrated approach to threat prevention,detection and response across an organization’s entire digital footprint. Darktrace’s global presence supports a diverse and varied customer base,and adapts proactively to customer pain points of all kinds. Darktrace’sadaptability across all market segments, from SMBs to large enterprisessupports both first time email security buyers and mature email securitystacks. It is able to meet varied security needs with lower setuprequirements, includes capability for advanced depth in configuration and,particularly for mature organizations, can augment existing security providerswith additional protections. Download the fullMagic Quadrant for Email Security Platforms here Resources:· Read more onthe Darktrace Blog· Read more abouthow business email compromise attacks are evolving on The Inference Gartner disclaimersGartner, Magic Quadrant for EmailSecurity Platforms, Max Taggett, Nikul Patel, Franz Hinner, Deepak Mishra, 16December 2024 GARTNER is a registered trademarkand service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant and Peer Insights are aregistered trademark, of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. andinternationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual endusers based on their own experiences with the vendors listed on the platform,should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the viewsof Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product orservice depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed orimplied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness,including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particularpurpose. Gartner does not endorse any vendor,product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advisetechnology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or otherdesignation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’sresearch organization and should not be construed as statements of fact.Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to thisresearch, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for aparticular purpose. About DarktraceDarktrace is a global leader in AI for cybersecurity that keepsorganizations ahead of the changing threat landscape every day. Founded in2013, Darktrace provides the essential cybersecurity platform protectingorganizations from unknown threats using its proprietary AI that learns fromthe unique patterns of life for each customer in real-time. The DarktraceActiveAI Security Platform™ delivers a proactive approach to cyber resiliencewith pre-emptive visibility into security posture, real-time threat detection,and autonomous response – securing the business across cloud, email,identities, operational technology, endpoints, and network. Breakthroughinnovations from our R&D teams in Cambridge, UK, and The Hague, Netherlandshave resulted in over 200 patent applications filed. Darktrace’s platform andservices are supported by over 2,400 employees around the world who protectnearly 10,000 customers across all major industries globally. To learn more,visit http://www.darktrace.com. ----
[1] Darktrace wins two Globeeawards for excellent customer service [PressRelease] [MW1]shouldthis be 'of'
About Darktrace
