Researchers observe first ‘near-autonomous’ AI attack on government target in Taiwan
Dream researchers observed the first near-autonomous AI attack on a government target, with suspected Chinese hackers stealing 2,500+ Taiwan records.
Israeli firm Dream reported that suspected Chinese hackers used open-source AI models to run a near-autonomous cyberattack against Taiwan's government, extracting over 2,500 personnel records. The framework, built on Hermes and OpenClaw, adapted mid-operation without human intervention, ran autonomous 'Learning Cycles' researching applicable vulnerabilities, and expanded to supply chain vendors, a nuclear safety agency, a government email system, and seven-plus energy companies. Attackers bypassed safety guardrails by framing the work as authorized penetration testing. Dream discovered the operation via a 160MB online archive of nearly 1,400 files.