AI agents helped hack more than 100 websites, Norforge says — The Verge

According to findings by AI security company Norforge, a hacker used mostly autonomous AI agents to hack more than 100 websites. Among the affected companies in the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan were John Deere, SharkNinja and Cummins, Reuters reported. The Verge reports.

The Cairn platform

Norforge researchers discovered the attacks by examining publicly available data related to Cairn, an open-source platform. Its developers describe Cairn as a universal engine for solving tasks. Users set the starting and ending points of work for AI agents, while the agents document the progress of the task.

Norforge noted that the platform can also be used to coordinate cyberattacks involving AI agents. According to Reuters, the identified hacker was the most active among the public Cairn instances found by the researchers.

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Attack parameters

Reuters reported that the attacker described the desired intrusion tactics in fewer than 100 Chinese characters. Successful intrusions lasted about 23 hours. In total, Norforge identified more than 20 public Cairn instances that the company considers likely malicious.

SharkNinja said the incident affected a separate website containing product support information. The company said it had contained the threat.