AI-enabled cyberattack
In plain wordsA computer attack in which criminals or spies use AI to help — writing convincing scam messages, finding weak spots, producing malicious code, or even running much of the hacking by itself.
A cyber operation in which artificial intelligence materially assists or carries out stages of an attack: reconnaissance, social engineering (personalized phishing, cloned voices in fraud calls), finding and exploiting vulnerabilities, writing or adapting malware, moving through networks, and sorting or exfiltrating stolen data. Through 2024, observed misuse mostly gave existing actors incremental gains such as faster phishing and coding help. In 2025 agenticAI agent, n.: An AI system that does not just answer but acts: given a goal, it decides on steps, uses tools such as a browser or code editor, checks the results and keeps going until the job is done. tools began executing multi-step intrusions with limited human direction: in November 2025 Anthropic reported that a group it attributed to the Chinese state had used its Claude Code agent, connected to penetration-testing tools, against about 30 organizations, with AI doing an estimated 80–90% of the work, though it often overstated or fabricated findings. The main concerns are lower skill barriers and greater speed and scale. Responses include provider monitoring and account bans, cyber-capability evaluationsdangerous capability evaluation, n.: A test of whether an AI system can do things that could cause severe harm in the wrong hands or on its own — such as helping make a bioweapon, hacking computers or copying itself. and defensive AI.
The incident report classed it as an AI-enabled cyberattack: an agent ran reconnaissance and exploitation across dozens of hosts overnight.
Origin
Anticipated in 'The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence' (Miles Brundage, Shahar Avin and colleagues, 2018) and tracked in AI providers' threat-intelligence reports from 2024. Anthropic's 'Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign' (November 2025), about activity detected in mid-September, was the first public account of a largely AI-executed intrusion campaign.
Usage note
Accounts of autonomy in such incidents come largely from AI providers' own reports, and some security researchers have questioned how novel or effective the operations were. The informal term vibe hackingvibe hacking, n.: Using AI coding assistants to carry out cyberattacks by describing the goal in everyday language, letting the AI do technical work the attacker could not do alone., modeled on vibe codingvibe coding, n.: Programming by conversation: you ask an AI for what you want, try out what it produces and ask again until it works, trusting the code without really reading it., names the practice of directing AI agents through attacks in plain language.
Related
- AI-assisted vulnerability discoveryAI-assisted vulnerability discovery, n.: Using AI to find security holes in software — and often to suggest fixes — faster than human experts alone, so that defenders, or attackers, can act on them.
- misusemisuse, n.: People deliberately using AI to cause harm — for scams, harassment, propaganda, hacking or weapons — as opposed to harm from AI making mistakes or pursuing goals of its own.
- dual-usedual-use, adj.: Describes technology or knowledge that can be used both to help and to harm: the same AI that finds software bugs for defenders can find them for attackers.
- AI agentAI agent, n.: An AI system that does not just answer but acts: given a goal, it decides on steps, uses tools such as a browser or code editor, checks the results and keeps going until the job is done.
- coding agentcoding agent, n.: An AI agent that writes and fixes software by itself: it reads a codebase, edits files, runs commands and tests, and keeps working until a feature is built or a bug is fixed.
- vibe hackingvibe hacking, n.: Using AI coding assistants to carry out cyberattacks by describing the goal in everyday language, letting the AI do technical work the attacker could not do alone.
- CybenchCybench, prop. n.: A test of AI agents' hacking skills built from 40 professional 'capture the flag' security puzzles, used to judge how much an AI could help cyberattacks or cyber defense.
- dangerous capability evaluationdangerous capability evaluation, n.: A test of whether an AI system can do things that could cause severe harm in the wrong hands or on its own — such as helping make a bioweapon, hacking computers or copying itself.
Sources
- Brundage, M., Avin, S. et al. (2018). The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation. Future of Humanity Institute et al.
- Anthropic (2025). Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign. November 2025. assets.anthropic.com/m/ec212e6566a0d47/original/Disrupting-the-first-reported-AI-orchestrated-cyber-espionage-campaign.pdf
Mentioned in
AI riskAI risk, n.: The ways AI could cause harm: people misusing it on purpose, systems behaving in ways nobody intended, and slower effects on jobs, power and society that no single person causes., AI securityAI security, n.: Protecting AI systems — their data, models and surrounding software — from being attacked, stolen or tricked, and dealing with the ways AI itself can be used to attack others., misusemisuse, n.: People deliberately using AI to cause harm — for scams, harassment, propaganda, hacking or weapons — as opposed to harm from AI making mistakes or pursuing goals of its own., accidental cyberattackaccidental cyberattack, n.: A break-in on real computer systems carried out by AI agents that were only supposed to be in training or being tested, with no person meaning to attack anyone., AI wormAI worm, n.: Malicious instructions that spread by themselves from one AI assistant to another — for example, an email that makes an AI email assistant send copies of the same trick to new people., AI-assisted vulnerability discoveryAI-assisted vulnerability discovery, n.: Using AI to find security holes in software — and often to suggest fixes — faster than human experts alone, so that defenders, or attackers, can act on them., CybenchCybench, prop. n.: A test of AI agents' hacking skills built from 40 professional 'capture the flag' security puzzles, used to judge how much an AI could help cyberattacks or cyber defense., global catastrophic riskglobal catastrophic risk, n.: A risk of disaster big enough to badly damage human civilization worldwide, such as killing a large share of humanity, even if humanity eventually recovers., vibe hackingvibe hacking, n.: Using AI coding assistants to carry out cyberattacks by describing the goal in everyday language, letting the AI do technical work the attacker could not do alone.