Norforge: AI agents breached more than 100 websites

The attacks came to light because Norforge was scanning for exposed instances of Cairn, an open-source platform that lets users set a start and end point for AI agents and watch them document their progress. That same design, meant for general problem-solving, can be pointed at corporate websites. Norforge found more than 20 exposed Cairn instances it describes as likely malicious, and the one behind the 100-plus breaches was the most active among them.

The victims span the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan, and the companies' responses suggest the damage was limited: John Deere said it saw no indication of sensitive information being accessed, SharkNinja said the affected site was a standalone product-support page and that it contained the threat, and Cummins said it is investigating a potential attack on a third-party vendor's site. Cairn's creator, who goes by @le1xia0, pushed back earlier this month, saying the platform was never a hacking tool and that misuse is a human decision rather than a feature of the engine. Norforge says it is working to get the malicious instances taken down.