800 Artex hacking systems left open to anyone on the web
Security researchers have found hundreds of copies of a Chinese-made AI hacking tool exposed publicly on the internet, where anyone could reach them and potentially launch cyberattacks on unsuspecting targets.
The software, called Artex, is an open-source autonomous penetration testing tool — software that automatically probes computer systems for weaknesses. It has been linked to several cyberattacks since its public release in July. Because it is open source, anyone can download it and run it on their own servers, making it popular with people who cannot access the most advanced cybersecurity AI models from Anthropic or OpenAI for finding vulnerabilities. Microsoft has previously described Artex as a system of AI agents that can conduct cyberattacks “from reconnaissance through data exfiltration with little needed human interaction.”
In a blog post, cybersecurity firm Censys, which scans the internet for exposed or vulnerable systems, said it identified more than 800 distinct deployments of Artex that were accessible from the web without a password to log in.
Silas Cutler, principal security researcher at Censys and author of the blog post, said not every Artex instance is run maliciously and many are used by authorized testers. But it is unclear why hundreds of these systems are exposed to the web, since the software does not require them to be reachable from the internet. The findings underscore how even powerful hacking tools can be misconfigured so that anyone can access them, raising the chance that someone will find and misuse them. The publicly accessible systems also expose attack tools such as implants — hidden malicious software used to compromise a victim’s network and keep persistent access.
Security companies have linked Artex to several broad-scale cyberattacks, including one against the Korean finance industry in September. Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike attributed those attacks to a Chinese-speaking hacker who used an Artex instance, in part because the hacker had left an “open directory” hosting the system. Censys said its data showed that Artex instance had been publicly exposed for months and appeared to hold more attack data extending “well beyond South Korean banks,” including payment and gaming companies.
Artex was also used in an attack on IT support giant ConnectWise earlier in October, which allowed Chinese-linked hackers to spy on thousands of organizations whose data and files are hosted in Microsoft’s cloud. Microsoft, which has visibility into the attack, said in a blog post that the hackers used Artex to break into customers’ cloud environments and steal their data so quickly that defenders had “little time to detect and respond.”
Many of the attacks linked to Artex involved exploiting simple vulnerabilities, such as guessing weak or known passwords, and a lack of multi-factor authentication. The findings show that simple weaknesses, including misconfigurations, can expose both the attacker and their targets.
Artex has since announced it would go closed-source, effectively limiting further releases to paid customers. Dozens of copies of Artex’s code are still available on code-sharing sites and can still be used in active attacks.
