FBI warns that the Artex tool uses AI agents to automate intrusions

The FBI issued a flash alert on Friday, November 13, about Artex, an open-source platform that, according to the agency, criminals and state actors are using to break into public bodies and companies in dozens of sectors, The Record reports.

According to the FBI, as quoted by the outlet, Artex can automate several phases of an intrusion, from reconnaissance to data exfiltration, through AI agents that carry out commands based on goals described in words, and some intrusions have gone from initial targeting to privileged access in under three hours. The agency says the program can use any language model and that Chinese models predominate in the attacker-controlled instances it has analysed.

The tool was released in August on GitHub and its author later removed the repository, but the FBI says it is still circulating in copies, variants and a commercial version, according to The Record. The alert cites data from the company Censys, which counted more than 1,600 Artex consoles exposed on the internet. Amazon published its own study the same day on groups using Artex to steal credentials for access to AI models, according to the same outlet.

Among the sectors targeted, the FBI lists financial services, government, energy, healthcare, telecommunications and defence, according to The Record. How many victims there are has not been detailed.

Developing story: the original text of the FBI alert and the Amazon study have yet to be opened to confirm the quotes and figures; for now all the data come from The Record.