Overseas hackers used artificial intelligence agents to help carry out a wave of cyberattacks targeting Taiwanese government agencies in July, the island’s digital affairs ministry said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Taiwan has previously blamed Chinese hackers for carrying out most of the millions of cyberattacks affecting the island democracy on a daily basis, but did not identify a particular country in this latest incident.<\/p>\n
China claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has intensified military, political and diplomatic pressure on the island in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taipei also accuses Beijing of using a range of “greyzone” methods — tactics that fall short of an act of war — including cyberattacks to harass the island. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The cyberattacks began in July and the “affected agencies have successively completed the response measures”, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said in a statement, without providing further details on the scale, damage or targets of the attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hackers used a “hybrid model” that combined AI agents, such as the open-source AI agent platform OpenClaw, to assist in the attacks, the ministry said.<\/p>\n
“AI agents can rapidly chain together multiple attack techniques and use secondary systems — such as backup and testing systems — as jumping-off points, giving the attacks the characteristics of high speed, low cost, and large scale.”<\/p>\n
Chinese tech giants seeking to take advantage of the interest in OpenClaw have been offering simplified installation and affordable coding plans to help users host its agents on cloud servers.<\/p>\n
The digital affairs ministry’s statement was in response to a Financial Times article this week that identified Taiwan as the target of an autonomous AI attack by suspected Chinese hackers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The FT, citing researchers at Israeli AI company Dream, said hackers had used open-source AI agents to build an autonomous tool to carry out the attack.<\/p>\n
The tool deployed up to eight autonomous agents that mapped 21 government systems, explored vulnerabilities and changed tactics when blocked, the FT said, describing the attack as a first of its kind.<\/p>\n
While AI cyberattacks are “not a new thing”, this was “the first time it has been revealed that multiple AI agents were used to carry out a cyberattack,” said Kenny Huang, chairman of Taiwan Network Information Center, an internet services company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several countries, notably the United States, have voiced alarm in recent years at what they say is hacking activity backed by Beijing targeting their governments, militaries and businesses.<\/p>\n
China has denied the allegations, previously insisting it opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyberattacks.<\/p>\n
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