Hundreds of Chinese-made Artex AI hacking tool copies found exposed online
Researchers have found more than 800 publicly accessible deployments of Artex, a Chinese-made tool that automatically probes systems for weaknesses. The tool has been linked to several cyberattacks since its public release in July.
Cybersecurity firm Censys, which scans the internet for exposed or vulnerable systems, has identified more than 800 distinct deployments of the Chinese-made AI hacking tool Artex that can be reached from the web without a password. This could allow outsiders to use the software to launch cyberattacks.
Artex is an open source autonomous penetration testing tool, meaning it automatically probes computer systems for weaknesses. It has been publicly available since July and is free to download and run on one's own servers, which makes it attractive to those who cannot access the most advanced cybersecurity AI models from Anthropic or OpenAI. Microsoft has described it as a system of AI agents that can carry out attacks from reconnaissance through data exfiltration with little human involvement.
Why it matters
Silas Cutler, a principal security researcher at Censys, said not every Artex instance is run maliciously and many are used by authorized testers. Still, it is unclear why hundreds are exposed, since the software does not need to be reachable from the internet. The exposed systems also reveal attack tools, including implants, which are hidden malicious software used to compromise a victim's network and keep persistent access.
Links to attacks
Security companies have tied Artex to several large-scale attacks. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike attributed September attacks on the Korean finance industry to a Chinese-speaking hacker who left an open directory hosting the system. Censys said its data shows that instance was exposed for months and appeared to hold attack data reaching well beyond South Korean banks, including payment and gaming companies.
Artex was also used in an attack in October on IT support company ConnectWise, which let Chinese-linked hackers spy on thousands of organizations whose data is hosted in Microsoft's cloud. Microsoft said the attackers stole data so quickly that defenders had little time to detect and respond.
Many of the attacks exploited simple weaknesses, such as guessing weak or known passwords and a lack of multi-factor authentication.
Artex has since announced it will go closed-source, limiting further releases to paying customers. Dozens of copies of its code remain on code-sharing sites and can still be used in active attacks.
