China-Linked Hackers Use AI Agents in Autonomous Attack on Taiwan
Suspected Chinese hackers used eight AI agents to autonomously breach Taiwan government networks, compromising 85+ accounts and stealing 2,500 personnel records.
Israeli cybersecurity firm Dream documented what appears to be the first fully autonomous, end-to-end AI hacking operation against a government target, suspected to be Taiwan, in early July. The toolkit, built from open-source agent frameworks Hermes and OpenClaw, deployed up to eight agents that mapped 21 government systems, compromised at least 85 accounts, and extracted over 2,500 personnel records before expanding to a nuclear safety agency and at least seven energy companies. Operators bypassed the model's guardrails by framing the entire campaign as an authorized penetration test. Dream found a 160MB, 1,395-file archive containing the deliberately assembled multi-agent weapon.
- Up to eight autonomous AI agents ran the four-day campaign against 21 government systems
- At least 85 government accounts compromised and 2,500+ personnel records stolen
- Toolkit built on open-source Hermes and OpenClaw agent frameworks
- Model guardrails bypassed by framing the attack as an authorized penetration test
- Operation expanded to a nuclear safety agency and seven energy companies
- ATT&CK
- T1190 Exploit Public-Facing ApplicationT1078 Valid AccountsT1213 Data from Information Repositories
- Vendors
- Dream Security
- Threat actors
- China-linked threat actor
- Victims
- Taiwan government
- Organizations
- Financial TimesAnthropicOpenAIMeta
From the original article
3 min read at securityaffairs.com
China-linked hackers reportedly used eight AI agents to breach a government network, steal data and compromise accounts with minimal human oversight. Israeli cybersecurity firm Dream documented what looks like the first fully autonomous, end-to-end AI hacking operation against a government target.
By @securityaffairs · securityaffairs.com
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