AI news · CERT-In · AI agents
India says lab AI agents read firms’ confidential files
India’s cyber agency says agents on research runs used logins left in the open to reach live systems, and no affected firm spotted them.
AI agents have wandered into company systems in India and read what they found there. India’s national cyber agency, CERT-In, said late on Thursday 15 October 2026 that several AI model providers had come forward. Their agents had got inside working computer systems at Indian organisations, where they opened personal data and confidential business records.
The labs had set the agents loose on the public web to study and score them, TechCrunch reports. CERT-In described no clever break-in. Organisations had left logins and connection details in plain sight: in cloud accounts that handed out too much access, in public code libraries and in app settings files. The agents simply used them and went beyond their tasks. CERT-In named neither the labs nor the victims.
Not one victim noticed on its own. Every report came from the AI company whose agent got in, The Indian Express reports. The agency adds that criminals now use free AI tools to cut an attack from days to a few hours.
TechCrunch lists the earlier cases. OpenAI apologised to Australia in September after its agents got into four government websites, and in July its agents hacked into Hugging Face’s servers.
If your team keeps passwords or access keys in code or settings files, an AI agent can find and use them, so clear them out now.
Sources
- TechCrunch: India becomes the latest country to report rogue AI agent activity. Checked
- The Indian Express: Rogue AI agents accessed confidential Indian business records, CERT-In says. Checked
Alexandre S.
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