黑客利用 AI Agent 大军攻破约翰迪尔与 SharkNinja 等上百家网站

根据 AI 安全公司 Norforge 的调查发现，一名黑客利用主要自主运行的 AI Agent 大军侵入了 100 多个网站。尽管 Norforge 并未指明具体目标，但据《路透社》（Reuters）报道，受害企业包括约翰迪尔（John Deere）、SharkNinja 以及康明斯（Cummins）。

随着技术的不断演进，人们对 AI 驱动网络安全漏洞的担忧日益加剧，黑客正利用相关工具实施大规模攻击。与此同时，失控的流氓 AI Agent 也在脱离测试环境后自行发起攻击。

Norforge 的研究人员是通过开源 AI 平台 Cairn 上暴露的运行实例发现这些攻击的。Cairn 在官方描述中自称是一个“通用问题解决引擎”。在 Cairn 中，用户为 AI Agent 设定起始点与终点，Agent 会在执行任务的过程中记录自身进展。然而正如 Norforge 所指出的，黑客同样可以利用该工具编排 AI Agent 来发动网络攻击。

据《路透社》报道，在 Norforge 发现的暴露 Cairn 实例中，攻破 100 多个网站的这名黑客是“最活跃”的一位，其攻击目标遍布美国、加拿大、澳大利亚和日本的企业。据报道，该攻击者仅使用了不到 100 个汉字就配置出了“首选入侵策略”，成功实施一次攻破大约耗时 23 小时。总体而言，Norforge 发现了 20 多个“可能具有恶意”的暴露 Cairn 实例。

康明斯发言人 Melinda Koski 在给 The Verge 的一份声明中表示，该公司“正在调查关于我们一家第三方供应商运营的网站遭到潜在网络攻击的报告”。约翰迪尔发言人向《路透社》表示，“没有迹象表明攻击导致敏感信息遭到访问”；SharkNinja 则表示，此次入侵仅影响了一个包含产品支持信息的独立网站，目前已控制住威胁。

约翰迪尔和 SharkNinja 未立即回应 The Verge 的置评请求。

Norforge 表示正在协助关停这些恶意 Cairn 实例。Cairn 的开发者（网名为 @le1xia0）本月早些时候表示，该平台“从来都不是什么‘黑客工具’”，并补充称“滥用是人为决定，而非引擎本身的功能”。

更新（10 月 19 日）： 已补充康明斯公司的声明。

A hacker broke into more than 100 websites using an army of AI agents that mostly operated on their own, according to findings from the AI security firm Norforge. Though Norforge doesn’t name the targets, Reuters reports that the victims included companies like John Deere, SharkNinja, and Cummins.

Concerns over AI-powered cybersecurity breaches have grown as the technology grows more advanced, with hackers using the tools to carry out large-scale attacks. At the same time, rogue AI agents are carrying out attacks of their own after escaping from testing environments.

Researchers at Norforge uncovered the attacks through exposed work on Cairn, an open-source AI platform that describes itself as a “general-purpose problem-solving engine.” With Cairn, users set a start and end point for the AI agents, which document their progress as they move forward with the task. However, as noted by Norforge, hackers can also use the tool to orchestrate cyberattacks using AI agents.

The hacker who broke into more than 100 sites was the “most active” among the exposed Cairn instances discovered by Norforge, waging attacks on companies based in the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan, as reported by Reuters. This attacker laid out “preferred intrusion tactics” using fewer than 100 Chinese characters, with successful breaches taking about 23 hours, according to Reuters. Overall, Norforge found more than 20 exposed Cairn instances that are “likely malicious.”

In a statement to The Verge , Cummins spokesperson Melinda Koski said the company “is investigating the report of a potential cyber-attack on a website operated by one of our third-party vendors.” A John Deere spokesperson told Reuters that there’s “no indication that ​sensitive information was accessed” as a result of the attack, while SharkNinja said the breach impacted a standalone site with product support information, and that it has contained the threat.

John Deere and SharkNinja didn’t immediately respond to The Verge ’s request for comment.

Norforge says it’s working to get the malicious Cairn instances taken down. Cairn’s creator, who goes by @le1xia0, said earlier this month that the platform “was never a ‘hacking tool,’” adding that “misuse is a human decision, not a feature of the engine.”

Update, October 19th: Added a statement from Cummins.