Massive Chinese hack uses AI agents to steal over 600,000 credit cards and hit hundreds of sites with malware

Image Credit: Geralt / Pixabay

(Image credit: Pixabay)

Gambit researchers uncovered ongoing AI‐driven skimming campaign stealing 600,000+ payment records since July 2026

Attackers used three autonomous harnesses (Strix, Cairn, Hermes) to compromise dozens of retail sites cheaply

Victims include major US firms; campaign shows AI enables faster, persistent, low‐cost cyberattacks at scale

In July 2026, a hacker tasked autonomous AI agents to attack retail organizations around the world, deploy credit card skimmers, and steal payment data.

Since then, the bots…