Reuters reports that the Chinese developer behind ARTEX, an open-source autonomous AI penetration-testing agent, has converted the project to closed source and stopped public updates after CrowdStrike and South Korean investigators linked it to intrusions at South Korean banks. The developer, who uses the GitHub handle Autumn-27, wrote in a notice on the now-removed repository that “given the misuse of the tool, the ARTEX project will no longer be updated” and would receive no further public maintenance, while denying responsibility for any illegal use. CrowdStrike attributed the campaign to a China-based suspect who combined ARTEX with Anthropic’s Claude Code to automate parts of the intrusion, and at least nine South Korean financial institutions have disclosed or been reported as targets since late September, prompting a police investigation.
Chinese developer makes ARTEX AI agent closed-source after South Korean bank hack
Reuters reports that the Chinese developer behind ARTEX, an open-source autonomous AI penetration-testing agent, has converted the project to closed source and stopped public updates after CrowdStrike and South Korean investigators linked it to intrusions at South Korean banks. The developer, who uses the GitHub handle Autumn-27, wrote in a notice on the now-removed repository that "given the misuse of the tool, the ARTEX project will no longer be updated" and would receive no further public maintenance, while denying responsibility for any illegal use. CrowdStrike attributed the campaign to a China-based suspect who combined ARTEX with Anthropic's Claude Code to automate parts of the intrusion, and at least nine South Korean financial institutions have disclosed or been reported as targets since late September, prompting a police investigation.
Source: Reuters