Security researchers have discovered hundreds of copies of a Chinese-made AI hacking tool publicly exposed to the internet for anyone to access, potentially allowing outsiders to launch cyberattacks against unsuspecting targets.
The hacking software, called Artex, is an open source autonomous penetration testing tool, meaning software that automatically probes computer systems for weaknesses, and it’s been linked to several cyberattacks since its public release in July. As open source software, it’s free for anyone to download and run on their own servers, making it a popular tool for those who cannot access Anthropic or OpenAI’s most advanced cybersecurity AI models for discovering security vulnerabilities. Microsoft has previously described Artex as a system of AI agents that can conduct cyberattacks “from reconnaissance through data exfiltration with little needed human interaction.”
Read more…
Source: TechCrunch
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Microsoft Exchange Servers Face APT Attack Tsunami
March 11, 2021
Recently patched Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities are under fire from at least 10 different advanced persistent threat (APT) groups, all bent on compromising email servers around the world. Overall exploitation activity is snowballing, according to researchers. Microsoft said in early March that it had spotted multiple zero-day exploits in the wild being used to attack on-premises versions ...
- NimzaLoader malware was written in an unusual programming language to stop it from being detected
March 11, 2021
A prolific cyber criminal hacking operation is distributing new malware which is written in a programming language rarely used to compile malicious code. Dubbed NimzaLoader by cybersecurity researchers at Proofpoint, the malware is written in Nim – and it’s thought that those behind the malware have decided to develop it this way in the hopes that ...
- Linux Systems Under Attack By New RedXOR Malware
March 11, 2021
Researchers have discovered a new backdoor targeting Linux systems, which they link back to the Winnti threat group. The backdoor is called RedXOR – in part because its network data-encoding scheme is based on the XOR encryption algorithm, and in part because its samples were found on an old release of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ...
- TrickBot Takes Over, After Cops Kneecap Emotet
March 11, 2021
A massive malicious spam campaign, along with the global takedown of Emotet, has vaulted the TrickBot trojan to the top of the Check Point’s list of the most popular malware among cybercriminals for February. In January, TrickBot was ranked third on Check Point’s list, and it was fourth overall for 2020, while the No. 1 malware, ...
- GandCrab ransomware affiliate arrested for phishing attacks
March 9, 2021
A suspected GandCrab Ransomware member was arrested in South Korea for using phishing emails to infect victims. The GandCrab ransomware operation started in January 2018 when it quickly became a malware empire threatening businesses worldwide. Operated as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), the GandCrab developers teamed up with affiliates in a revenue share partnership, with affiliates earning between 70-80% ...
- Hackers access surveillance cameras at Tesla, Cloudflare, banks, more
March 9, 2021
Hackers gained access to live surveillance cameras installed at Tesla, Equinox, healthcare clinics, jails, and banks, including the Bank of Utah. In addition to images captured from the cameras, the hacker also shared screenshots of their ability to gain root shell access to the surveillance systems used by Cloudflare and at Telsa HQ. Hacks multiple cameras in ...