Darktrace Cyber Security Startup History

1. HISTORY OF DARKTRACE Darktrace is an artificial intelligence company that specializes in cybersecurity. It was brought to existence in 2013 when a slew of experts came together to help organizationsprotecttheirbusinessesfromvirtualthreats.WithheadquartersinbothSan Francisco and Cambridge, the team involved cyber intelligence specialists and Cambridge university scholars, including believedmachinelearningwouldmakeahugedifferenceinthedigitalworld. This brought in-depth know-how on artificial intelligence and mathematics to the table.Soonthetechnologyprovedmorethansuccessfulindetectingamultitudeofonline dangers, such as latent vulnerabilities, state-sponsored espionage, insider attacks, and cloud-basedthreats. Darktrace was funded by a venture capital firm named belongs to Lynch. He is mostly known for selling his start-upAutonomy to computer giant HP. It is estimated that the Cambridge University graduate put between £630,000 and £1.3millionintothecybersecuritycompany. British entrepreneur Dr. Michael Lynch who Invoke Capital , which

2. LAUNCHING DARKTRACE ENTERPRISE One of the first and biggest productscreatedbythefirmis . It can detect threats in real time, provide the necessary network visualization,andalerttheITdepartment totheproblemrightaway.Aswellasthat, it can further investigate the matter and givetheteamadditionalinformation.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 routineoperationsthathappenwithinthe company, such as what files employees work with, whether they are using a workstation or a mobile device, and at whattimetheytypicallyclockin. Enterprise Immune System This is what determines the baseline. Any significant deviation from the usual activity immediately triggers an alert message that notifies whoever is in charge of this to a possible attack. For example, if someone is attempting to connectwithmoreexternaldevicesthannormaloraccessaglutofinformation, it is immediately considered fishy by the system.The goal is to identify and stop threats before they have occurred rather than remove them when they have alreadydoneharm. This is based on the way our immune systems work to ward off 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 detectanomaliesandtakeactionagainstthem.

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 findings to determine whether there is a certain threatscenariotobewareof. Another feature is total network immersion in real time. It delivers information about all network interactions, such as border data, log files, 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 seemstoworkhereistheself-learningmechanismwhichcanadaptto differentevolvingenvironments,justlikethehumanbodydoes.

4. RELEASING DARKTRACE ANTIGENA, THE FIRST-EVER AUTONOMOUS RESPONSE TECHNOLOGY In 2016, the leadership of the firm on the artificial intelligence scene was reinforced with a new product called 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 different about Antigena is that it can take action for you immediately. It actsasadigitalantibody. Antigena . The technology The things that it can do for your organization include marking different pieces of content for further tracking (e.g. emails); semi- quarantining/quarantining devices, systems, and users; and slowing down/stoppingmaliciousactivity.Itisimportanttonotethattheseactions donotinterruptnormalbusinessprocesses.

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 ' , Innovation which was bestowed to the company in 2016.Then, in 2018, it also got the Queen'sAward for InternationalTrade. QueensAward for Enterprise

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 devicesaround150countrieswereimpacted. According to Europol, EU's law enforcement agency, the scale of the ransomware was unprecedented, the most affected 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 preventtheransomwarefromspreadingtoalloftheirsystems. And while most traditional security defenses failed to detect or neutralize the problem, keepingallconsumernetworkssafefromtheimminentdanger.Itisno surprisethatthefirm’ssalesskyrocketedimmediatelyafterthat. Darktrace Antigena was quick to react,

7. START OF DARKTRACE INDUSTRIAL In November 2017, the firm came up with Industrial - a special technology that can detect latent vulnerabilities and cyber threats in OT environments like IT networks and . Along with that, it offers 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 monitorseverythingthatishappeningonnetworksanddevices, creating a pattern for each user and “learning normal behaviors”. It is in this way that it can identify potential threats andreacttothembeforetheygrowtohugeproportions. SCADA systems

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 @_0rbit. It involved email addresses, documents, and phone numbers. The hackers' attack affected political parties in Germany. The only exception was the far-right political groupcalled AlternativeforGermany(AfG). Chancellor Angela Merkel and representatives of all Thefunnythingwasthatthedataleakwasnotnoticeduntilafewdays 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 files on multiple platforms for everyone to download. Darktrace'sdirectorofthreathunting motive behind this deed is still unclear. He expressed his concern that cyber-attacksaremakingtheirwaytointerveningindemocraticprocesses. According to leading cyber intelligence expert Darktrace, it is expected that the attacks will be even more elaborate and sophisticatedin2019,withAIintheepicenterofevents. MaxHeinemeyer commentedthatthe Justin Fier of

9. STOPPING HACKERS FROM SCOOPING MILLIONS FROM A FINANCE COMPANY IN SINGAPORE In2018,hackerswereonthebrinkof dollars from a Singaporean financial services stealingmillionsof 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 confidential information, send malicious e-mails to clients, or perform bank transactions. Fortunately, no seriousharmwasdone. Source: https://sites.google.com/view/darktrace-history/