AI Assistants Abused for Command-and-Control and Data Exposure Risks

Security researchers reported that AI assistants with web-browsing/URL-fetch features can be repurposed as stealthy command-and-control (C2) relays, allowing attackers to proxy commands and exfiltrate data through legitimate-looking enterprise traffic. Check Point’s proof-of-concept, dubbed “AI as a C2 proxy,” demonstrated abuse paths against Microsoft Copilot and xAI Grok, including scenarios that do not require an API key or even a registered account, complicating common mitigations such as key revocation or account suspension.

Separately, organizations are responding to broader AI data security and privacy concerns by restricting AI tooling: the European Parliament reportedly disabled built-in AI features on lawmakers’ work devices due to uncertainty over what data is uploaded to AI vendors’ cloud services and the risk of sensitive correspondence exposure. In healthcare, ECRI Institute researchers flagged AI chatbots as a leading 2026 health-tech hazard, citing safety, security, and privacy risks from unvalidated clinical use, alongside ongoing concerns about IT outages and legacy medical device cybersecurity—reinforcing that AI adoption is increasingly being treated as a governance and risk-management issue, not just a productivity upgrade.