AI Agents Gain Access to Websites of More Than 100 Companies

An AI agent campaign gained access to websites belonging to more than 100 companies after attempting more than 1,200 sites, while a separate operation instructed agents to steal cryptocurrency.

The campaign began Sept. 25 and focused largely on e-commerce targets in the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia. A Chinese-speaking operator gave agents brief assignments, then left them to spend hours finding and testing possible ways into each site. The agents had attempted more than 1,200 websites by mid-October.

The attacks used Cairn, a framework that coordinates agents as they examine targets and attempt intrusions. Exposed control panels in the largest cluster recorded more than 1,100 projects across 14 panels. That project count differs from the number of websites attempted; the available figures do not establish a one-to-one match between them.

Projects that reached their assigned goals took just under 23 hours on average. In one case, investigators confirmed that an uploader tool on a vendor’s website was accessible. The finding shows one result of the campaign, but the effects varied among the sites identified.

“It’s not script kiddie stuff,” NorForge principal threat researcher Snorre Fagerland said.

The campaign’s AI model costs were estimated at about $5,000, or roughly $50 per successful intrusion. The exposed panels did not show actual token usage totals, so those amounts are estimates of spending rather than measured costs.

Deere said it took remedial steps and had seen no signs of access to sensitive information. SharkNinja said the affected site held product support information and that it had contained the threat. Cummins said it was looking into a possible attack involving a site run by an outside vendor.

The cryptocurrency instructions appeared in a separate, English-language Cairn cluster. Its agents were told to steal cryptocurrency and move funds between wallets. Those instructions are distinct from the activity counted in the larger campaign, which centered on commerce and payment websites.

The distinction also applies to the scope of the findings: the more than 1,200 attempted sites and access to websites belonging to more than 100 companies describe the larger campaign. The separate panels recorded cryptocurrency-related instructions.