Yes, email security is critical to effective supply chain attack prevention. Because email is the primary communication channel for most businesses, it is a top target for cyber-attacks that exploit trusted relationships with suppliers, vendors, and customers. If a supplier’s email account is compromised, attackers can send phishing emails, fake invoices, or malware from what appear to be legitimate sources.  

Because they come from legitimate accounts, phishing attacks from third party vendors often bypass traditional email gateways and filters. To stop this, organizations need advanced supply chain attack email protection that goes beyond static rules and signatures. Darktrace / EMAIL uses AI to identify subtle anomalies in communication patterns, tone, and content. This helps stop malicious messages while allowing legitimate business communications to continue.

Darktrace detects supply chain threats by analyzing behavior across an organization's email, cloud, and network environments, even when the activity appears to come from trusted partners. For example, in Vendor Email Compromise (VEC) cases, a partner’s legitimate email account may be hijacked to send malicious messages. Darktrace uses AI to learn the normal behavior of every internal and external user. It identifies anomalies in language, timing, access patterns, and file types to uncover supply chain threats before damage occurs. This makes it a powerful solution for supply chain attack prevention.

Darktrace protects against compromised software updates and malicious code injection by focusing on anomaly detection and behavioral analysis, rather than relying on static signatures or lists of known threats. This approach enables Darktrace to spot unusual activity even when it appears legitimate on the surface.

For example, in the case of the Cyberhaven Chrome extension compromise, traditional tools may have missed the threat because the activity seemed benign. But Darktrace’s AI detected subtle behavioral changes at the device, browser, and network levels, flagging the incident as suspicious. This illustrates how modern supply chain attacks don’t just target software vendors, they now exploit browser extensions, cloud-based apps, and even SaaS services to infiltrate environments.

Darktrace also identified Balada Injector malware exploiting WordPress vulnerabilities, showing its ability to detect malicious code injections in web-based platforms and content management systems.

By continuously learning what’s normal for each environment, Darktrace can detect and respond to malicious updates, injected code, and other evolving threats whether they originate from trusted vendors, cloud apps, or browser extensions.

Darktrace monitors API usage and third-party system integrations by analyzing data from connected platforms and services. It integrates with hundreds of third-party tools such as firewalls, EDR, SIEM, SOAR, and vendor risk platforms. This enables Darktrace to provide unified visibility and context around third-party activity, helping organizations detect supply chain threats that may emerge through integrated systems.

Yes, Darktrace can detect threats introduced through MSPs or external IT support by continuously analyzing behavior across your digital environment, including cloud services, email, endpoints, and network traffic. Supply chain threats often emerge from legitimate but compromised third-party access, making them difficult to detect with traditional rule-based tools. Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI understands what ‘normal’ looks like for each user, device, and service account, enabling it to spot subtle deviations that may indicate abuse of privileged access or lateral movement originating from a trusted partner.

This behavior-based detection is essential to modern supply chain attack prevention, where trust alone is no longer enough.

Darktrace monitors third-party communications by building an understanding of normal interactions between suppliers. This includes typical email behavior, file sharing patterns, and remote access activity. By learning what is expected for each supplier, user, and device, Darktrace can detect even minor changes that suggest compromise or abnormal behavior.

Because it uses AI to focus on behavior rather than static rules or threat feeds, Darktrace greatly reduces false positives. For example, it can detect if a supplier suddenly sends unexpected file types or accesses sensitive data they usually do not interact with. This makes supply chain attack prevention more accurate and less noisy for security teams.

Darktrace / Attack Surface Management identifies exposed assets as your adversary would see, find, and exploit. Once it has identified all confirmed assets, Attack Surface Management creates a comprehensive risk profile of your digital estate. It can discover a wide array of vulnerabilities including shadow IT, supply chain risks, potential phishing domains, vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, and risks arising from mergers and acquisitions.