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Darktrace brings its cybersecurity to new markets with AWS Global Passport

by AWS Editorial Team | 18 Apr 2025 | Thought Leadership

Overview

The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving, yet many organizations rely on security solutions that are trained on data from previous incidents. While this can protect against known threats, it can make it difficult to detect subtle activity. To mitigate future risks, best practices need to evolve in tandem with the changing cyber threats and an increasingly complex digital environment.

As a leader in AI for cybersecurity, Darktrace has a unique understanding of how to use the right AI for the right problem. Unlike traditional security approaches, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI works across each organization’s digital environment to identify subtle deviations that could indicate a novel threat. Using a multi-layered approach that combines various AI types and advanced techniques, it learns about each individual customer to understand what’s normal for their unique business.

As Darktrace’s Co-Founder Nicole Eagan explains, “If an insider or an external adversary attempts a very targeted, specific novel attack, we can spot it and contain it in seconds.”

Going against the grain

Since Darktrace was founded in 2013, it has championed diversity of thought—a culture which has shaped their innovative methods and rapid growth. “When we started out, less than 10 percent of security professionals were women,” says Eagan. Beyond its high percentage of female leadership, including its CEO, CFO, and founding members, employees represent a range of backgrounds and disciplines. “This has made a real difference because we’re not locking ourselves into one particular approach,” adds Eagan.

By taking a platform approach and thinking differently from point solutions, Darktrace can shine a light on blind spots across an organization’s digital infrastructure, including:

  • Corporate network
  • Cloud
  • Email
  • Endpoints
  • Operational technology


As Francesca Bowen, Global Vice President of Cloud at Darktrace, explains, “An attacker doesn’t think in silos, they often move laterally.” Darktrace’s teams originally drew inspiration from outside of the cybersecurity realm, such as analyzing how diseases evolve in living organisms and mapping findings against potential solutions. In doing so, they can go deeper into how threats might transform.

The platform visualizes and correlates incidents across the entire enterprise—wherever data and operations live. “It’s like an early warning detection system allowing customers to stay one step ahead of emerging risks,” Bowen adds. Darktrace’s developments in agentic AI systems are further accelerating alert investigations and ensuring potential risks aren’t overlooked. Cyber AI Analyst mirrors the human investigative process, providing security teams with clear decision logic and well-defined actions. With quicker detection, investigation, and response, organizations can stop threats 30 times faster.

Bespoke deployments at a global level

Darktrace is trained on enterprise-centric data, where no two deployments are identical. Through a combination of unsupervised machine learning, anomaly detection models, and clustering methods, Darktrace's Self-Learning AI builds an accurate understanding of each company and its users. For example, if deployed in a hospital, the platform learns from the hospital’s employees, IoT devices, and medical devices in real-time. Operating in highly regulated environments, Darktrace promotes privacy throughout the design, development, and deployment of its AI. For example, it takes its algorithms to each customer’s data and infrastructure, learning on local environments instead of drawing extensively on external data sets.

Having quickly proven their approach, Darktrace was able to expand early on. “Our goal was to build the world's best Self-Learning AI, so we needed it to work with as many companies as possible across all sizes and verticals. It also had to scale up and down and understand a global geopolitical landscape,” Eagan explains.

Today, Darktrace has 10,000 customers around the world. On a mission to help more companies minimize the impact of cyber disruption, the business is expanding its presence as a trusted cybersecurity partner in the United States.

However, new regions mean new infrastructure, compliance, and go-to-market challenges. Kyle Grady, Darktrace’s Director of Cloud Alliances Marketing, adds, “We've needed to build brand recognition in the US market. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is such a great partner for that because you can stand on the shoulders of giants.”

A joint force for growth

To accelerate expansion, Darktrace sought specialized support and resources through the AWS Global Passport program. “It’s helped us understand where we can make the biggest impact in a small amount of time,” says Grady. From building a cloud-first culture to seizing the benefits of a joint go-to-market approach, AWS has supported Darktrace throughout their growth journey. “It’s a really deep and broad alliance,” Bowen comments.

Working closely towards a shared vision has opened doors to customers in new verticals and regions. “Seeing our technical teams and AWS solutions architects solve customer challenges together in a secure way is like nirvana,” says Bowen. Commenting on the nimble nature of the partnership, Eagan adds: “We’ve always met the right people at the right time when presenting our next challenges and opportunities.”

Darktrace has also gained resources such as a dedicated sales hub, opportunities to present at AWS re:Invent, and specialist knowledge to equip sales teams with a nuanced understanding of local prospects. What’s more, by selling on AWS Marketplace, they can streamline the buying process for customers to secure deals faster.

The era of the AI-powered CISO

Looking ahead, Darktrace is continuing to push the envelope with cybersecurity. Having recently developed a leading-edge AWS Cloud detection and response solution, they can help secure customers’ critical infrastructure against tougher emerging risks within fast-moving, dynamic cloud environments.

“We’re really excited to partner with AWS on the agentic AI journey. As leaders in autonomous capabilities, we already understand how AI augments chief information security officers (CISOs) to become more effective and efficient at scale,” says Eagan. By empowering these leaders to become AI champions across their business and leveraging an enterprise-centric approach, Darktrace is preparing their growing global customer base for the next phase of cybersecurity. Learn how AWS gives software and technology companies the freedom to grow their businesses in the cloud.