Censys Finds Hundreds of Exposed ARTEX AI Attack Consoles
Censys said Nov. 4 that 1,465 hosts ran an exposed console for ARTEX, an AI penetration-testing tool tied to attacks on Korean banks and ConnectWise.
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WASHINGTON — The internet-scanning firm Censys said it found 1,465 hosts running an exposed web console for ARTEX, an open-source AI penetration-testing framework, as of Nov. 4, 2026.
About 650 of those hosts sat in two blocks of identically configured hosting, leaving roughly 815 distinct-looking deployments, Censys said in a blog post. The company said the console does not need to face the public internet and that global use is likely higher.
What ARTEX is
ARTEX was published on GitHub on July 26, 2026, under the AGPL-3.0 license, according to Censys. The firm said a Planner agent turns a goal into attack tasks and Worker agents run tools such as nmap to carry them out.
Censys said the framework works with Anthropic, OpenAI or any OpenAI-compatible model endpoint. Microsoft has described ARTEX as able to run attacks “from reconnaissance through data exfiltration” with little human input, TechCrunch reported.
The developer, who uses the handle Autumn-27, posted a statement on Oct. 8 saying they were not involved in any attacks and that ARTEX was meant for authorized testing, Censys said. The developer said the project would go closed-source, and the repository has since been taken down, according to Censys.
Links to two campaigns
CrowdStrike reported on Oct. 7 that an unattributed actor used ARTEX against South Korean financial companies from late September to early October, according to Censys. CrowdStrike assessed with moderate confidence that the actor was a financially motivated Chinese speaker, Censys said.
Microsoft said in an Oct. 21 threat report that Storm-0940, which it called a China-state aligned actor, used ARTEX to automate attacks on hundreds of organizations. Microsoft assessed that Storm-0940 was responsible for the ConnectWise supply chain compromise.
In several of those attacks, the time from initial targeting to privileged cloud access was less than 3 hours, Microsoft said.
Attack kits left in the open
Censys said 155 ARTEX hosts, or 10.6%, also ran at least one other threat it detects, including Cobalt Strike, Vshell and Adaptix command-and-control software. The company said it counted 32 open directories on ARTEX hosts that exposed post-exploitation kits, stagers and implants.
Censys said not every exposed instance is malicious and that some are likely run by authorized testers. TechCrunch reported that archived copies of ARTEX code remain available on code-sharing sites.
What it means
Analysis: The Censys count shows how open-source AI attack tools spread faster than their authors can recall them. The same exposure that gives defenders visibility into attacker infrastructure also leaves live attack kits reachable by anyone. The figures are a lower bound, since Censys counted only consoles reachable from the internet.
Sources
- Censys: ARTEX: Agentic Asbestos
- Microsoft Security: Storm-0940 uses ARTEX agentic AI in ConnectWise supply chain compromise
- TechCrunch: Hundreds of Artex AI hacking tools found publicly exposed to the web
Related coverage
- CISA, NSA and FBI Warn of China-Linked Data Theft Campaign
- Zero trust shifts security from networks to resources
- What Open-Source Intelligence Means for US Agencies
