Hacker Used AI Agents to Breach Over 100 Sites, Security Firm Finds

Researchers at Norforge uncovered the attacks through exposed work on Cairn, an open-source AI platform that describes itself as a "general-purpose problem-solving engine." With Cairn, users set a start and end point for AI agents, which document their progress as they move forward with the task. Norforge noted that hackers can also use the tool to orchestrate cyberattacks using AI agents.

The hacker who broke into more than 100 sites was the "most active" among the exposed Cairn instances Norforge discovered, according to Reuters. The attacker targeted companies based in the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan. The attacker laid out "preferred intrusion tactics" using fewer than 100 Chinese characters, Reuters reported, and successful breaches took about 23 hours. Norforge found more than 20 exposed Cairn instances that are "likely malicious."

A John Deere spokesperson said there was "no indication that sensitive information was accessed" as a result of the attack. Cummins said it is "investigating the report of a potential cyber-attack on a website operated by one of our third-party vendors." SharkNinja said the breach impacted a standalone site with product support information and that it has contained the threat.