Censys finds 800+ publicly exposed copies of ARTEX, a Chinese-made, AI-powered, open-source penetration testing tool linked to several cyberattacks since July (Zack Whittaker/TechCrunch)
Security researchers have discovered hundreds of copies of a Chinese-made AI hacking tool publicly exposed to the internet for anyone to access …
Security researchers at Censys have identified more than 800 distinct deployments of Artex, a Chinese-made, AI-powered, open-source penetration testing tool, that are publicly accessible on the internet without password protection. TechCrunch reports that the software is an autonomous tool used to automatically probe computer systems for weaknesses, and it has been linked to several cyberattacks since its release in July.
Microsoft has described Artex as a system of AI agents capable of conducting cyberattacks from reconnaissance to data exfiltration with minimal human interaction. While the software is free to download and often used by those unable to access advanced cybersecurity AI models from OpenAI or Anthropic, Censys principal security researcher Silas Cutler noted that not every instance is operated maliciously, as many are used by authorized testers. It remains unclear why hundreds of these systems are exposed to the web.
Brief written by urgent.news from Techmeme, TechCrunch — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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