Researchers found threat actors running automated attacks through the open source AI platform at scale.
SecurityWeek reports that security firm Norforge found threat actors abusing the open source AI platform Cairn to automate malicious operations against hundreds of websites worldwide. Norforge identified three clusters of activity, the largest comprising more than 1,100 attack projects spread across 14 dashboards, aimed at gaining persistent access through webshells, likely for later monetization. A second cluster focused on credit card and cryptocurrency theft, and a third targeted e-commerce sites for shell and admin panel access, with the attackers succeeding in roughly 10 percent of their attempts.
Norforge has not named the victims, but Reuters reported separately that the group behind the largest cluster had breached more than 100 companies, including equipment maker John Deere and appliance maker SharkNinja.
Why it matters: attackers are now using AI platforms themselves as automation infrastructure, not just as targets. Enterprises should treat AI tooling, including open source agent platforms running in their environment or their supply chain, as part of the attack surface that needs monitoring and access control, not just a productivity layer.