Chance of rain 1%.
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Lone hacker let AI agents breach 100-plus company sites, researcher says
NorForge findings, reported by Reuters, put the cost near $50 per intrusion; the extent of data theft is unknown
WASHINGTON — A Chinese-speaking hacker handed most of the work of breaking into company websites to AI agents, according to a Reuters exclusive published Oct. 19 and based on research by the security firm NorForge. Researcher Snorre Fagerland found the operation while scanning for exposed installations of Cairn, an open-source agent platform. He says the agents tried more than 1,200 mostly e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Japan from Sept. 25 and got into more than 100. A successful break-in took about 23 hours. The operator's instructions ran under 100 Chinese characters. Token costs were roughly $5,000, or about $50 per success. Worker names suggested Claude Code running a DeepSeek model, but NorForge did not confirm the full setup. Deere said it found no sign that sensitive data was accessed. SharkNinja said the affected site was a standalone product-support page. Cummins is investigating a third-party vendor's site. Reuters could not determine how much data, if any, was taken.
Why it mattersIf one person can run intrusions at this scale for a few thousand dollars, defenders can no longer assume attacks are limited by human labor.
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The World
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Technology & Science
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Memphis
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Ideas
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Sports
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Travel
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