How AI is enabling faster, more dangerous cyber warfare
· Axios
Refrigerator hacks. $6.3 billion crypto heists. 14-country espionage campaigns carried out in just 11 days. All in the span of a week.
Why it matters: State-backed hackers are finding new ways to launch cyberattacks at remarkable speed and scale, with AI and automation threatening to widen the gap between attackers and defenders.
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Driving the news: Hackers tampered with refrigeration systems at dozens of European grocery stores in one night earlier this week — raising temperatures and spoiling food in a sweeping attack some linked to Russia.
- "It's hard to imagine this is not the work of a nation state pretending to be a criminal actor," Cynthia Kaiser, former deputy director of the FBI's cyber division, told Axios. "Given the concentration around Europe, Russia is a reasonable first suspect."
- French blood banks were also affected in the attacks on European refrigeration systems, authorities said Wednesday.
- SentinelOne researchers reported Tuesday that Russian-aligned hackers have previously claimed attacks on European refrigeration systems.
- Meanwhile, the Pentagon has also been investigating a series of suspected hacks of refrigeration systems on its military bases over the summer. Nextgov reported that investigators suspect Iran was behind those attacks. Others have suggested potential Iran ties in Europe as well.
The big picture: No clear evidence has yet linked the attack on food supply through smart refrigeration to AI or automation, but nation-state hackers have used those tools in other breaches to speed up their operations.
- Google researchers said Friday that multiple hacking groups have used automated security testing tools in recent attacks. One China-linked group gained deep access to a victim's network in as little as 15 minutes.
- North Korean hackers behind last week's record-setting Binance heist also likely used automation to move stolen cryptocurrency and cover their tracks, according to Chainalysis.
Case in point: China-linked hackers used an AI-powered tool called Artex to target more than 200 organizations across 14 countries in just 11 days last month, CrowdStrike found.
- The group, known as Vapor Panda, targeted government agencies across Latin America, the Middle East and Europe, along with U.S. organizations and telecommunications providers in several countries.
- The hackers paired Artex with DeepSeek and a commercial AI model to run agents that automated much of the operation.
Between the lines: Artex is one of several AI-powered tools automating tasks once handled by skilled human hackers.
- Adam Meyers, CrowdStrike's senior vice president of counter adversary operations, told Axios he tested Artex himself and found it could probe websites for weaknesses far faster than a human.
- "It was doing the stuff that you, as a pen tester, would do," Meyers said. "But it does it really at a scale and a speed that I think a human would not be able to do."
- Other AI-powered security testing tools, including Cairn and Strix, could be repurposed for similar attacks, Meyers said.
Reality check: The refrigeration attacks also raise questions about overlooked security gaps that hackers can exploit without sophisticated AI tools.
- "I see these attacks the same way I saw the attacks on U.S. water systems this summer: Nobody looked until it made the news," Mike Searight, a former public-sector CIO and executive advisor to Elisity, told Axios.
- AI-powered hacking tools still need weaknesses to exploit. "It's not magic," Meyers said.
What to watch: The UK's National Cyber Security Centre warned Tuesday that AI could accelerate existing hacking tactics, leaving organizations with weaker defenses and outdated technology especially vulnerable.