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Hackers deployed an autonomous AI system to carry out cyberattacks on Taiwan, in what experts believe is the first known fully autonomous attack on government agencies. Thana Prasongsin/Moment RF/Getty Images
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Hackers deployed an AI system to carry out sophisticated cyberattacks on Taiwan, officials said, in what experts believe is the first known fully autonomous attack on government agencies.
Over four days in July, the AI agents were able to map 21 government systems, crack 85 government user accounts, and extract 2,500 personnel records, according to Dream, an Israeli AI firm that first discovered the attack.
Experts suspect the hackers are from China, but neither Taiwan, nor Dream would confirm the origin of the July attacks.
“The investigation found clear indications that the attacks originated overseas and involved a hybrid approach in which hackers combined conventional operations with AI agents such as OpenClaw,” Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs said in a Thursday statement.
The hackers’ system was built using open-source AI agents to automate and coordinate much of the intrusion, including reconnaissance, credential attacks and strategizing subsequent attack paths, Dream said. The Financial Times first reported the case on Wednesday.
The attack comes amid an increasing number of reports of advanced AI models engaging in unauthorized actions, raising fears of the proliferation of AI-enabled cyberattacks and prompting calls for more government action to regulate AI.
According to Kenny Huang, chairman of the Taiwan Network Information Center, this is believed to be the first disclosed case of a fully automated attack against a government.
Using AI to write code and search for vulnerabilities in cyberattacks has become common. But this incident went significantly further.
In this case, an autonomous system coordinating up to eight AI agents – carrying out intrusions and deciding what to do next without human intervention – effectively ran a hacking campaign rather than just merely assisting a human hacker.
“It spells out one thing loudly – the cost of running a competent attack has collapsed, but the cost of defending against one has not,” a blog post by Dream said.
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