{
 "public_id": "AIR-2026-0175",
 "incident_id": "2026-07-unit42-hermes-agent-autonomous-campaign",
 "date_disclosed": "2026-07-30",
 "date_occurred": "2026-05-01",
 "title": "Chinese-speaking actor runs an autonomous DeepSeek/Hermes Agent offensive campaign against internet infrastructure",
 "class": "in_the_wild",
 "attack_surface": "autonomous_ops",
 "initial_vector": "attacker_operated_agent",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "target_enumeration",
  "exploit_sourcing",
  "command_execution",
  "tool_use"
 ],
 "target_product": "DeepSeek models driven by the Hermes Agent framework",
 "target_vendor": "DeepSeek / Hermes Agent",
 "autonomy_level": "fully_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": true,
 "impact_type": [
  "data_exfiltration",
  "remote_code_execution",
  "unauthorized_access"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "Internet-facing Citrix NetScaler and Marimo notebook instances across three countries; a Malaysian government entity targeted manually",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI05",
   "ASI03"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "offensive_agent",
   "autonomous_attack",
   "in_the_wild"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": null,
 "defense_bypassed": null,
 "fix_shipped": null,
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/autonomous-ai-cyber-attack-campaign/"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "The actor, operating under the aliases knaithe and KnYuan, leveraged DeepSeek, via the Hermes Agent framework, as their autonomous offensive operator.",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "Attacker-side abuse of an agent rather than a victim-side agent compromise. Unit 42 confirms data exfiltration from three Citrix NetScaler targets and command execution on eleven Marimo notebook instances; the actor also tested Claude Code, Codex, Qwen Code, GLM, Kimi and MiniMax and orchestrated via Telegram.",
 "risk_category": "security_fraud",
 "risk_secondary": [
  "privacy"
 ],
 "risk_subcategory": "Remote Code Execution & Sandbox Escape",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [
  "Unauthorized Access & Account Takeover"
 ],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": false,
 "agency_reason": "the agent enumerated targets, sourced exploits and executed commands",
 "vector_family": "other",
 "vector_detail": "attacker_operated_agent",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "unknown"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "silent",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI05",
 "agent_framework": "unknown",
 "model_provider": "deepseek",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "threat_intel",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "privilege_escalation",
 "eai_domain": "access_control_and_permissions",
 "eai_secondary": [
  "data_exfiltration_channels"
 ],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Remote Code Execution & Sandbox Escape",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "rule",
 "asi_reason": "ASI05 (impact=code_exec); ASI03 (signal=identity)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}