Xitoylik xakerlar ochiq manbali, ko'p agentli ARTEX AI penetratsion testlash tizimidan 14 mamlakatdagi 200 dan ortiq tashkilotga qarshi hujumlarda foydalangan.
Operatsiya 17-oktabrda boshlangan va davlat vazirliklari, telekommunikatsiya provayderlari hamda farmatsevtika, yarimo'tkazgich, mudofaa, yadro va moliya sohalaridagi tashkilotlarni nishonga olgan.
Tahdid aktori kamida to'qqizta tashkilotni buzib kirgan va kamida 12 ta boshqa yuqori qiymatli nishonga qarshi parol purkash hujumlari hamda hisob ma'lumotlarini skanerlash faoliyatini amalga oshirgan.
CrowdStrike tadqiqotchilariga ko'ra, "kampaniya Xitoy bilan bog'liq AI agentlaridan foydalanishda eskalatsiyani anglatadi — yagona kirishlardan inson operatori tomonidan boshqariladigan bir nechta bir vaqtdagi hujumlarga o'tish".
Tasdiqlangan jabrlanuvchilar orasida AQSh va Belgiyadagi telekommunikatsiya provayderlari, Gretsiya, Yaqin Sharq va Lotin Amerikasidagi davlat tashkilotlari hamda AQShdagi farmatsevtika firmalari bor.
Tadqiqotchilar tahdid aktorini Vapor Panda deb kuzatishadi va Gretsiya davlat tashkilotiga qarshi hujumda AI agentlari 2022-yilgi pochta serveri katalog eksportidan olingan autentifikatsiya kalitlaridan foydalanib administrator tokenini soxtalashtirgan va pochta qutilarini o'qigan.
ARTEX AI — xitoylik ishlab chiquvchilar tomonidan yaratilgan va dastlab ochiq manbali loyiha sifatida chiqarilgan penetratsion testlash to'plami. Biroq, uning yaratuvchilari Janubiy Koreya moliyaviy muassasalariga qarshi kampaniya kabi haqiqiy hujumlarda foydalanilgandan so'ng uni xususiy (proprietary) qilgan.
Vapor Panda o'zining so'nggi kiberjosuslik operatsiyasida bir vaqtda bir nechta kirishlar bo'yicha rejalashtirish va ishchi agentlarini muvofiqlashtirish uchun DeepSeek va ikkinchi, noma'lum tijorat til modelidan ham foydalangan.
CrowdStrike aytishicha, hujumchilar ko'rsatmalarni xitoy tilida bergan va qaror qabul qilish kerak bo'lgan muhim nuqtalarda aralashgan.
AI agentlari razvedka o'tkazgan, zaifliklardan foydalangan, veb qobiqlarni joylashtirgan, hisob ma'lumotlarini qo'lga kiritgan va zarur bo'lganda muqobil hujum yo'llarini izlagan.
Operatorlar agentlarga Falcon — CrowdStrike'ning endpoint himoyasi yechimi bilan himoyalangan Windows mashinalarini o'tkazib yuborishni va himoyalanmagan xostlarga e'tibor qaratishni aniq ko'rsatgan.
Bir kirishda AI agentlari 1,4 milliarddan ortiq kirish tokenlarini iste'mol qilgan, deb hisoblashadi tadqiqotchilar.
CrowdStrike shuningdek, tahdid aktori Lotin Amerikasi va Yaqin Sharqdagi davlat tashkilotlariga qarshi 2023-yildan beri faol BLOODALCHEMY orqa eshikni joylashtirganini aniqlagan.
Yana ko'proq ARTEX AI holatlari
Niderlandiya Zaiflikni Oshkor Qilish Instituti (DIVD) 2026-yil sentyabrda o'ziga qarshi sodir etilgan va AI agentiga bog'langan kiberhujum haqida ko'proq tafsilotlar ulashgan.
So'nggi yangilanishiga ko'ra, tarmog'iga qarshi hujumda ishlatilgan vosita ARTEX AI bo'lib, u avtonom tarzda harakat qilgan.
DIVD LinkedIn'dagi postida hujum dastlabki kirishdan root huquqlarigacha 12 daqiqada amalga oshirilganini, Zammad nol kun zaifligi bilan mahalliy huquqni oshirish uchun ikkinchi nol kun zaifligini zanjirlaganini tushuntirgan.
Agent bir vaqtda ko'plab vazifalarni bajargan, jumladan buzilgan pochta qutisini o'qish, ichki tarmoqni skanerlash, kirish tokenlarini ajratib olish va parolni qayta o'rnatishga urinish.
DIVD 450 000 dan ortiq so'rov va hujum bilan bog'liq 2 500 skriptni qayd etgan va faoliyatni "juda shovqinli va tartibsiz" deb ta'riflagan.
Mavjud himoyalaringiz o'tkazib yuborishi mumkin bo'lgan elektron pochta tahdidlarini aniqlang.
Adaptive Security'ning AI agentlari elektron pochta niyati, konteksti va xatti-harakatini tahlil qilib, fishing, biznes elektron pochta buzilishi va hisob-faktura firibgarligini aniqlaydi.
Microsoft 365 yoki Google Workspace'ning 14 kunlik faqat o'qish skaneri bilan nima o'tib ketayotganini ko'ring — MX o'zgarishlarsiz.
Bepul elektron pochta xavfsizligi skaneringizni boshlang.
Chinese hackers used ARTEX, an open-source, multi-agent AI penetration-testing framework, in attacks against more than 200 organizations across 14 countries.
The operation began on October 17 and targeted government ministries, telecommunications providers, and organizations in the pharmaceutical, semiconductor, defense, nuclear, and financial sectors.
The threat actor compromised at least nine organizations and carried out password spraying attacks and credential scanning activity against at least 12 other high-value targets.
According to researchers at CrowdStrike, the "campaign marks an escalation in China-nexus use of AI agents, from single intrusions to multiple simultaneous engagements directed by a human operator."
Confirmed victims include telecommunications providers in the United States and Belgium, government organizations in Greece, the Middle East, and Latin America, and pharmaceutical firms in the U.S.
The researchers track the threat actor as Vapor Panda and say that in the attack against the Greek government entity, the AI agents forged an administrator token and read mailboxes by leveraging authentication keys from a 2022 mail-server directory export.
ARTEX AI is a penetration testing suite developed by Chinese developers and initially released as an open-source project. However, its creators later made it proprietary after it was used in real-world attacks, including a campaign against South Korean financial institutions.
In its most recent cyberespionage operation, Vapor Panda also used DeepSeek and a second, unidentified commercial language model to coordinate planning and worker agents across multiple intrusions simultaneously.
CrowdStrike says the attackers issued instructions in Chinese and intervened at critical points where decisions needed to be made.
The AI agents performed reconnaissance, exploited vulnerabilities, deployed web shells, obtained credentials, and pursued alternative attack paths when needed.
The operators explicitly instructed the agents to skip Windows machines protected by Falcon, CrowdStrike's solution for endpoint protection, and focused on unprotected hosts.
In one intrusion, the AI agents consumed more than 1.4 billion input tokens, the researchers believe.
CrowdStrike also found that the threat actor deployed BLOODALCHEMY, a backdoor active since 2023, against government entities in Latin America and the Middle East.
More ARTEX AI cases emerge
The Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD) has shared more details about the cyberattack it suffered in September 2026, which it attributed to an AI agent.
According to its latest update, the tool used in the attack on its network was ARTEX AI, which acted autonomously.
DIVD explained in a post on LinkedIn that the attack went from initial access to root privileges in 12 minutes, chaining a Zammad zero-day with a second zero-day for local privilege escalation.
The agent performed numerous tasks simultaneously, including reading a compromised mailbox, scanning the internal network, extracting login tokens, and attempting password resets.
DIVD recorded over 450,000 requests and 2,500 scripts connected to the attack, describing the activity as “super loud and messy.”
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