AI agents breached more than 100 company websites in a $4,600 campaign
A Chinese-speaking hacker used Cairn, an open-source AI agent platform, to target more than 1,200 websites and breach over 100, according to NorForge researcher Snorre Fagerland. The campaign began on 25 September and targeted e-commerce sites in the US, Canada, Australia and Japan; Reuters identified John Deere, SharkNinja and Cummins among the victims. The extent of any data theft remains unclear.
Bottom line — NorForge estimates the campaign used about €4,600 (US$5,000) in AI tokens, with successful intrusions taking around 23 hours on average.
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Fagerland said the hacker's instructions were fewer than 100 Chinese characters; Cairn's agents then searched for vulnerabilities and attempted to establish access.
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John Deere said it took remediation steps and had no indication sensitive information was accessed.
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SharkNinja said the affected site was a standalone product-support website and that the threat had been contained.
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Cummins said it was investigating a possible attack on a website operated by a third-party vendor.
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Reuters could not establish how much data, if any, was taken; two smaller businesses also acknowledged compromises.
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NorForge found more than 20 exposed Cairn instances it considered likely malicious and said the panels contained hundreds of potentially sensitive credentials and keys.