Hackers used a Chinese artificial-intelligence agent to attack South Korea's biggest banks and steal the personal information of 68,000 people, officials said, in what investigators describe as one of the first AI-powered intrusions into the global financial system.
The attacks were initially detected last week and hit at least seven South Korean financial firms. Investigators in Seoul said the intrusions showed traces of a cybersecurity tool called Artex AI that was developed in China. The National Police Agency's cyber terror unit said on Tuesday it had opened a probe into the breach.
What was taken
The stolen data included annual income and personal-loan limits of some customers — information that could be sold to scammers or otherwise traded on the web, according to the report.
Officials have not identified any culprits and said they were seeking international cooperation in the investigation. The attacks originated from more than two dozen internet addresses in roughly a dozen countries, including the United States, Japan and Germany.
What is Artex AI
Artex is an open-source AI agent developed by Li Puhua, a Chinese cybersecurity engineer who uses the alias Autumn. The agent is not itself an AI model; instead it draws on existing models — including Anthropic's Opus, OpenAI's GPT and China's DeepSeek — to autonomously discover vulnerabilities and plan attack routes, often with minimal human intervention.
Li designed Artex specifically for cybersecurity uses, aiming to help organisations identify vulnerabilities in their networks. In this case, South Korean officials believe malicious hackers repurposed the tool to get into the banks' systems and steal customer and employee data. After reports of the bank breaches emerged, Artex updated its user guidelines to specify that the tool must not be used for unauthorised intrusions, data theft or other malicious purposes.
Growing alarm
South Korean authorities have called on banks to harden their systems. President Lee Jae Myung told a Tuesday cabinet meeting that speed was of the essence and directed that necessary measures be implemented immediately. Shares of South Korean cybersecurity companies surged by as much as 30 per cent on Tuesday.
Anthropic last year alleged that state-sponsored Chinese hackers used its AI technology to automate break-ins of roughly 30 global targets, a claim Beijing rejected. Australia said in September that an OpenAI agent had infiltrated a government website, and Google's Gemini model recently accessed the internet and hacked other companies during a cybersecurity capability test.
Sources: Wall Street Journal: Hackers Use Chinese AI Tool to Hit South Korean Banks
The attacks were initially detected last week and hit at least seven South Korean financial firms. Investigators in Seoul said the intrusions showed traces of a cybersecurity tool called Artex AI that was developed in China. The National Police Agency's cyber terror unit said on Tuesday it had opened a probe into the breach.
What was taken
The stolen data included annual income and personal-loan limits of some customers — information that could be sold to scammers or otherwise traded on the web, according to the report.
Officials have not identified any culprits and said they were seeking international cooperation in the investigation. The attacks originated from more than two dozen internet addresses in roughly a dozen countries, including the United States, Japan and Germany.
What is Artex AI
Artex is an open-source AI agent developed by Li Puhua, a Chinese cybersecurity engineer who uses the alias Autumn. The agent is not itself an AI model; instead it draws on existing models — including Anthropic's Opus, OpenAI's GPT and China's DeepSeek — to autonomously discover vulnerabilities and plan attack routes, often with minimal human intervention.
Li designed Artex specifically for cybersecurity uses, aiming to help organisations identify vulnerabilities in their networks. In this case, South Korean officials believe malicious hackers repurposed the tool to get into the banks' systems and steal customer and employee data. After reports of the bank breaches emerged, Artex updated its user guidelines to specify that the tool must not be used for unauthorised intrusions, data theft or other malicious purposes.
Growing alarm
South Korean authorities have called on banks to harden their systems. President Lee Jae Myung told a Tuesday cabinet meeting that speed was of the essence and directed that necessary measures be implemented immediately. Shares of South Korean cybersecurity companies surged by as much as 30 per cent on Tuesday.
Anthropic last year alleged that state-sponsored Chinese hackers used its AI technology to automate break-ins of roughly 30 global targets, a claim Beijing rejected. Australia said in September that an OpenAI agent had infiltrated a government website, and Google's Gemini model recently accessed the internet and hacked other companies during a cybersecurity capability test.
Sources: Wall Street Journal: Hackers Use Chinese AI Tool to Hit South Korean Banks
