AI Cyberattack: China-linked Hackers Target Taiwan Gov't

Suspected China-linked hackers used AI to launch the first-ever end-to-end autonomous cyberattack on Taiwan's government. An Israeli firm reports that an open-source tool continuously created effective hack strategies in real-time. This attack compromised at least 85 user accounts and stole over 2,500 personnel records from Taiwanese government systems. What's interesting is that the hackers used publicly available AI tools. The campaign ran for four days in early July, deploying up to eight autonomous agents in parallel. These agents mapped 21 government systems before expanding activity to Taiwan's nuclear safety agency, seven energy companies, and other government systems. The tool was built on two open-source AI agent systems, Hermes and OpenClaw, which are freely available. Researchers found that the tool could continuously devise attacks on its own, adapting tactics when one approach failed. The internal communications of the operators were in Simplified Chinese. This shows that easily accessible AI tools can be used to launch sophisticated, autonomous cyberattacks.