METR: Hackers Steal API Keys, Rack Up $600K AI Bill

Hackers ran up a $600,000 AI bill after stealing API keys, according to AI research non-profit METR. This went unnoticed for weeks. Here's the thing: The hackers stole an API key for public AI models in March. They then consumed $600,000 worth of credits. Luckily, the model developer had given these credits to METR for free. What's interesting is how it happened. A researcher used an EC2 instance that was intentionally made public. This instance had an API key for METR’s general-access account. A "vibe-coded app" on this instance had a vulnerability that silently disabled authentication, exposing the system for several days. METR believes the attacker found the instance by looking for newly registered websites with keywords related to AI. The attacker then prompted an agent to reveal its API key and added an SSH key for persistent access. Over three weeks, they used these stolen credentials to consume the API credits. METR didn't notice because they are used to running evaluations that use large volumes of tokens. Their internal usage dashboard also didn't show data on rate-limited requests at the time. The bottom line: because METR wasn't paying for the tokens, there was no spending limit on the keys. This incident highlights the importance of robust security measures, even for free resources.