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AIs are Getting Better at Finding and Exploiting Internet Vulnerabilities

23 January 2026 at 13:01

Really interesting blog post from Anthropic:

In a recent evaluation of AI models’ cyber capabilities, current Claude models can now succeed at multistage attacks on networks with dozens of hosts using only standard, open-source tools, instead of the custom tools needed by previous generations. This illustrates how barriers to the use of AI in relatively autonomous cyber workflows are rapidly coming down, and highlights the importance of security fundamentals like promptly patching known vulnerabilities.

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A notable development during the testing of Claude Sonnet 4.5 is that the model can now succeed on a minority of the networks without the custom cyber toolkit needed by previous generations. In particular, Sonnet 4.5 can now exfiltrate all of the (simulated) personal information in a high-fidelity simulation of the Equifax data breachβ€”Β­one of the costliest cyber attacks in historyβ€”Β­using only a Bash shell on a widely-available Kali Linux host (standard, open-source tools for penetration testing; not a custom toolkit). Sonnet 4.5 accomplishes this by instantly recognizing a publicized CVE and writing code to exploit it without needing to look it up or iterate on it. Recalling that the original Equifax breach happened by exploiting a publicized CVE that had not yet been patched, the prospect of highly competent and fast AI agents leveraging this approach underscores the pressing need for security best practices like prompt updates and patches.

Read the whole thing. Automatic exploitation will be a major change in cybersecurity. And things are happening fast. There have been significant developments since I wrote this in October.

New Wave of Attacks Targeting FortiGate Firewalls

22 January 2026 at 13:10

Hackers bypass the FortiCloud SSO login authentication to create new accounts and change device configurations.

The post New Wave of Attacks Targeting FortiGate Firewalls appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Hackers Targeting Cisco Unified CM Zero-DayΒ 

22 January 2026 at 09:52

Cisco has released patches for CVE-2026-20045, a critical vulnerability that can be exploited for unauthenticated remote code execution.

The post Hackers Targeting Cisco Unified CM Zero-DayΒ  appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Chainlit Vulnerabilities May Leak Sensitive Information

20 January 2026 at 15:13

The two bugs, an arbitrary file read and an SSRF bug, can be exploited without user interaction to leak credentials, databases, and other data.

The post Chainlit Vulnerabilities May Leak Sensitive Information appeared first on SecurityWeek.

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