Open-Source AI Agents Powered Intrusions Against Taiwan and Malware Supply Chains

Researchers and government officials said a China-linked operation used open-source AI agent frameworks to conduct a near-autonomous intrusion campaign against Taiwan government and critical-sector organizations. The activity reportedly combined up to eight sub-agents built on OpenClaw and Hermes to automate reconnaissance, API enumeration, credential theft, vulnerability validation, lateral movement, persistence, and data exfiltration across 12 attack waves. Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs disclosed abnormal attacks with overseas origins, while reporting tied the campaign to compromises of 85 employee accounts, theft of roughly 2,500 personnel records, and targeting of agencies and suppliers including energy companies, a government email system, IT supply-chain vendors, and the nuclear safety sector.

Separate reporting showed the same AI agent ecosystem is also being abused as a malware and credential-theft supply chain. In the ClawHavoc campaign, attackers poisoned more than 350 OpenClaw ClawHub skills disguised as legitimate tools, then used ClickFix-style lures and a fake AuthTool requirement to push infostealers and steal crypto wallets. Security researchers warned that autonomous agents can pair stolen credentials and session cookies with shared malicious skills, black-market exchanges, and prompt-injection techniques to bypass MFA, move laterally, and even deploy ransomware, turning widely available agent frameworks into a fast-scaling offensive platform and a new software supply-chain risk.