Chinese hackers spied on thousands of companies after breaching IT giant ConnectWise
Chinese state-aligned hackers breached IT management firm ConnectWise to steal credentials and access thousands of corporate environments. The attackers utilized AI agents to automate the exploitation process, significantly increasing the speed and scale of the breach.
Why it matters
The use of AI agents in cyberattacks represents a new frontier in threat intelligence, making it harder for security teams to detect and mitigate mass-scale intrusions.
The bad week for cybersecurity just got worse for thousands more companies, who were spied on by Chinese hackers following the breach of IT management and remote access giant ConnectWise.
Security researchers at Microsoft say the China state-aligned hackers broke into ConnectWise’s cloud backup service and stole application credentials that are used to establish data links between ConnectWise and its corporate customers, who rely on the cloud service to backup their company’s data.
By stealing the credentials, the hackers could log in to the customer’s Microsoft-hosted environment as if they were an authorized user and access their emails and other files.
According to Microsoft, the hackers used AI agents to rapidly hack into around 2,250 organizations at a rate of almost 3,000 attempted sign-ins per minute. Microsoft said this speed gives defenders “little time to detect and respond.”
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