Darktrace Cyber Security Startup History

1
HISTORY OF DARKTRACE
Darktrace is an arti?cial intelligence company
that specializes in cybersecurity. It was
brought to existence in 2013 when a slew of
experts came together to help organizations
protect their businesses from virtual threats.
With headquarters in both San Francisco and
Cambridge, the team involved cyber intelligence
specialists and Cambridge university scholars,
including British entrepreneur Dr. Michael Lynch
who believed machine learning would make a huge
di?erence in the digital world. This brought
in-depth know-how on arti?cial intelligence and
mathematics to the table. Soon the technology
proved more than successful in detecting a
multitude of online dangers, such as latent
vulnerabilities, state-sponsored espionage,
insider attacks, and cloud-based
threats. Darktrace was funded by a venture
capital ?rm named Invoke Capital, which belongs
to Lynch. He is mostly known for selling his
start-up Autonomy to computer giant HP. It is
estimated that the Cambridge University graduate
put between 630,000 and 1.3 million into the
cybersecurity company.
2
LAUNCHING DARKTRACE ENTERPRISE One of the ?rst
and biggest products created by the ?rm is
Enterprise Immune System. It can detect threats
in real time, provide the necessary network
visualization, and alert the IT department to
the problem right away. As well as that, it can
further investigate the matter and give the team
additional information. The way it works is by
analyzing what is normal for each and every
device, subnet, and user in a given
organization. In other words, it tracks down
daily routine operations that happen within the
company, such as what ?les employees work with,
whether they are using a workstation or a mobile
device, and at what time they typically clock
in. This is what determines the baseline. Any
signi?cant deviation from the usual activity
immediately triggers an alert message that
noti?es whoever is in charge of this to a
possible attack. For example, if someone is
attempting to connect with more external devices
than normal or access a glut of information, it
is immediately considered ?shy by the system. The
goal is to identify and stop threats before they
have occurred rather than remove them when they
have already done harm. This is based on the way
our immune systems work to ward o? viruses. They
learn which cells do or do not belong to our
bodies and this is how they know how to protect
us. By understanding what is normal, they can
quickly detect anomalies and take action against
them.
3
THE ERA OF SELF-LEARNING CYBER INTELLIGENCE
PLATFORM
In 2014, the company launched a new version of
its technology, which had a number of unique
features. One of these is network, device and
user correlation. It works by establishing
mathematical models in real time that involve
each network, user, and device. Then it connects
all the ?ndings to determine whether there is a
certain threat scenario to beware of. Another
feature is total network immersion in real time.
It delivers information about all network
interactions, such as border data, log ?les,
device-to-device communications, and internet
channels, etc.. Along with that, the new system
included 3D threat visualization, which enables
customers to analyze internal networks. What
really seems to work here is the self-learning
mechanism which can adapt to di?erent evolving
environments, just like the human body does.
4
RELEASING DARKTRACE ANTIGENA, THE FIRST-EVER
AUTONOMOUS RESPONSE TECHNOLOGY
In 2016, the leadership of the ?rm on the
arti?cial intelligence scene was reinforced with
a new product called Antigena. The technology
generates autonomous responses that take measures
against cyber threats that are in progress. This
helps to limit their spread and the damage they
do. Let's say some danger befalls your system at
night. With other systems, you will see the
alert once you get back to your computer in the
morning. By the time you do something to stop the
malicious threat, it will have done plenty of
harm already. What is di?erent about Antigena is
that it can take action for you immediately. It
acts as a digital antibody. The things that it
can do for your organization include marking
di?erent pieces of content for further tracking
(e.g. emails) semi- quarantining/quarantining
devices, systems, and users and slowing
down/stopping malicious activity. It is important
to note that these actions do not interrupt
normal business processes.
5
THE QUEEN'S AWARD FOR ENTERPRISE IN INNOVATION
2016 Over the years, Darktrace has won a great
deal of prizes, and not by surprise. Their
number is so high that it is going to take
forever to list all of them. There is one award
which is worth mentioning though and this is the
Queen's Award for Enterprise, Innovation which
was bestowed to the company in 2016. Then, in
2018, it also got the Queen's Award for
International Trade.
6
FIGHTING BACK THE WANNACRY ATTACK In May 2017,
the WannaCry ransomware attack struck computers
around the world that ran Microsoft Windows. The
hackers demanded that owners pay ransoms in
Bitcoin in order to take back control of their
data. The initial infection is considered to have
started in Asia through an exposed SMB port. In
just a day, over 230,000 devices around 150
countries were impacted. According to Europol,
EU's law enforcement agency, the scale of the
ransomware was unprecedented, the most a?ected
territories being Taiwan, India, Ukraine, and
Russia. The attack sieged organizations and
companies like Renault, Nissan Motor
Manufacturing, Deutsche Bahn, Spain's Telefónica,
and England's National Health Service. Some of
these had to stop production to prevent the
ransomware from spreading to all of their
systems. And while most traditional security
defenses failed to detect or neutralize the
problem, Darktrace Antigena was quick to react,
keeping all consumer networks safe from the
imminent danger. It is no surprise that the
?rms sales skyrocketed immediately after that.
7
START OF DARKTRACE INDUSTRIAL
In November 2017, the ?rm came up with Industrial
- a special technology that can detect latent
vulnerabilities and cyber threats in OT
environments like IT networks and SCADA systems.
Along with that, it o?ers real-time visibility on
enterprise and industrial networks alike. This
enables IT specialists to protect their systems
from threats the moment they hit. Similarly to
the other Darktrace products, this one monitors
everything that is happening on networks and
devices, creating a pattern for each user and
learning normal behaviors. It is in this way
that it can identify potential threats and react
to them before they grow to huge proportions.
8
HACKED DATA OF ANGELA MERKEL AND OTHER GERMAN
POLITICIANS At the end of 2018, sensitive data
about a large number of German politicians was
posted on Twitter by someone with a username
_at__0rbit. It involved email addresses, documents,
and phone numbers. The hackers' attack a?ected
Chancellor Angela Merkel and representatives of
all political parties in Germany. The only
exception was the far-right political group
called Alternative for Germany (AfG). The funny
thing was that the data leak was not noticed
until a few days after it had occurred. The
Twitter account was eventually suspended but
that didn't shush the mouths of the villains.
They provided back-up links of the breached ?les
on multiple platforms for everyone to download.
Darktrace's director of threat hunting Max
Heinemeyer commented that the motive behind this
deed is still unclear. He expressed his concern
that cyber-attacks are making their way to
intervening in democratic processes.
According to leading cyber intelligence expert Jus
tin Fier of Darktrace, it is expected that the
attacks will be even more elaborate
and sophisticated in 2019, with AI in the
epicenter of events.
9
STOPPING HACKERS FROM SCOOPING MILLIONS FROM A
FINANCE COMPANY IN SINGAPORE
In 2018, hackers were on the brink of stealing
millions of dollars from a Singaporean ?nancial
services company when its senior manager opened
a phishing email. The attack struck his computer
right away. It would have spread to all other
devices across the network, causing devastating
losses for the organization, hadn't it been for
the Darktrace software to jump into action. The
technology kept the hackers from accessing
con?dential information, send malicious e-mails
to clients, or perform bank transactions.
Fortunately, no serious harm was done. Source
https//sites.google.com/view/darktrace-history/