Hackers used Chinese AI agent on South Korean banks; Anthropic expands cyber defense

· Tech · South Korea · China

The perpetrator of a recent hack of South Korean financial institutions that resulted in data leaks used an open-source Chinese AI agent called Artex and Chinese large language models, according to a report this week by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, as reported by The Information. The analysis shows how attackers are adopting AI tooling in real intrusions. Separately, Anthropic said Thursday it is launching new programs to support cybersecurity for critical infrastructure and open-source software, offering threat research, on-site engineers and access to its frontier Claude models to infrastructure operators. Together the two developments illustrate AI moving to the center of both attack and defense in the security industry.

Why it matters：AI agents and models are being woven into both offensive intrusions and defensive programs, which will push security budgets and tooling toward AI-native approaches.

Key points

  • CrowdStrike tied the South Korean bank breaches to an open-source Chinese AI agent called Artex.
  • The intrusions resulted in data leaks at financial institutions.
  • Anthropic will offer threat research, on-site engineers and Claude model access to infrastructure operators.

Sources (original reporting)

More stories from this day