Extortion crews have their eyes on high-value AI data, Google warns
Google's Mandiant warns extortion crews now steal proprietary AI models, prompts, and research for ransom, while threat actors automate attacks with agentic AI.
Google's AI Threat Tracker details intrusions in which extortion crews exfiltrated healthcare drug research and a proprietary AI model, and stole an AI media company's source code, prompts, skills, model scripts, and secrets, threatening leaks unless paid. TeamPCP (UNC6780), behind large open-source supply chain attacks on PyPI, npm, and Docker Hub since March, used a malicious GitHub Actions workflow to exfiltrate a company's proprietary AI repository. Mandiant also observed a fully autonomous multi-agent credential-harvesting cloud intrusion completed in under six hours, and a China-linked espionage group using Gemini to build a dynamic automated penetration-testing framework.
- Victims spanned tech, healthcare, pharma, and media in North America and Europe
- UNC6780 exfiltrated a proprietary AI repo via malicious GitHub Actions workflow
- Autonomous multi-agent attack scanned, troubleshot, and rotated IPs without manual intervention
- China-linked crew used Gemini for an automated pentesting framework; Google disabled its assets
- Vendors
- Products
- GeminiGitHub Actions
- Organizations
- MandiantGoogle Threat Intelligence Group
- Countries
- China
- AI models
- Gemini
From the original article
3 min read at theregister.comCompanies 'don't want their IP exposed, so they're willing to pay'
By Jessica Lyons · theregister.com
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