Hackers Use Hundreds of AI Agents to Exploit PaperCut Flaws and Compromise 440 Servers Worldwide
A Russian-speaking actor used hundreds of AI agents to exploit PaperCut flaws, compromising 440 servers across 395 organizations in 48 countries.
GreyNoise's Global Observation Grid observed a Russian-speaking threat actor operating from IP 45.142.193.132 deploy hundreds of autonomous AI agents, built on OpenAI's Codex harness with a DeepSeek model, to exploit PaperCut NG/MF flaws CVE-2026-81578 (authentication bypass) and CVE-2026-82078 (unsafe reflection RCE). At least 440 servers across 395 organizations in 48 countries were compromised; the US had 98 victims and educational institutions accounted for 204. The agents paired with Mimikatz, Certipy, Rubeus, and Impacket, escalated to domain admin in 12 of 440 cases, and executed DCSync to exfiltrate the full NTDS.DIT credential database.
- Codex/DeepSeek-powered agents compromised 11 organizations in 26 seconds
- Actor rehearsed exploits in a private lab and built targets via a compromised Netlas.io API key
- Three paths: LSASS/registry credential theft, noPac CVE-2021-42278/42287, rogue Domain Admin accounts
- Agents told to avoid 28 countries still hit some, called 'agents gone wild'
- Past PaperCut exploitation led to ransomware; current intent remains unclear
- ATT&CK
- T1190 Exploit Public-Facing ApplicationT1003.001 LSASS MemoryT1550.002 Pass the HashT1098 Account ManipulationT1558.006 DCSync
- Victims
- US high school
- Organizations
- GreyNoise
- AI models
- DeepSeek
Vulnerabilities mentioned
All| CVE | Vulnerability | CVSS | EPSS | Signals | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CVE-2021-42287+1 related CVE | Privilege Escalation in Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services | 7.5 | 77% | KEVRansomware | KEV |
CVE-2026-82078+1 related CVE | Unsafe Reflection RCE in PaperCut NG/MF, Chained with Auth Bypass in Attacks | 9.4 group max | 61% | KEV | KEV |
Indicators of compromise
auto-extracted · verify before use · export allAll| Type | Indicator | Context |
|---|---|---|
| ipv4 | 45.142.193.132 | nfrastructure. The malicious actor operated from IP address 45.142.193.132, which GreyNoise had flagged since early July 2026 for prob |
From the original article
3 min read at cybersecuritynews.com
A Russian-speaking threat actor has weaponized artificial intelligence at an unprecedented scale, deploying hundreds of autonomous AI agents to exploit critical vulnerabilities in PaperCut NG/MF print management software and compromise at least 440 servers across 395 organizations in 48 countries. Security researchers at GreyNoise identified the campaign through their Global Observation Grid, a network of […]
By Guru Baran · cybersecuritynews.com
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