Malware news · Silicon AI News

October 20263 stories

Tampered Claude Code add-on in Cursor’s store had a backdoor

Versions 2.1.312 and 2.1.313 tried to give an unknown attacker remote access to developers’ computers. Cursor pulled them after about 11 hours, and Anthropic says it never built or published them.

For about 11 hours on October 29, Cursor’s extension store offered a tampered copy of Anthropic’s Claude Code extension. Cursor says the bad builds added an attacker’s SSH key, tried to open remote access and sent out details about each computer. Cursor shut the store down and rebuilt it, and it says removing the extension may not be enough.

3 min read

Safety & SecurityOct 21

Hacked release of AI tool LiteLLM carried a key stealer

A poisoned version 1.107.0 of the open-source AI gateway was online on October 21. LiteLLM says attackers misused three engineers’ GitHub accounts.

LiteLLM connects apps to many AI models, so it often holds their keys. Version 1.107.0 hid malware that steals passwords and keys. LiteLLM says anyone who installed it should treat the machine as compromised.

3 min read

Safety & SecurityOct 13

Anthropic says small AI models may soon spread like worms

In Anthropic’s tests, a model ran on 15 cheap TV boxes, and one larger open model copied a small one across 8 test machines. No such AI worm has been seen in the wild yet.

Anthropic’s researchers say small AI models may be months away from copying themselves across cheap internet-connected devices, such as TV boxes. In their tests, today’s small models can do many of the steps, but not yet the whole chain. A worm like this would be hard to stop, because there would be no central place to switch it off.

3 min read

September 20261 story

Safety & SecuritySep 23

Malware lets AI models vote on its next step, Talos says

Talos is Cisco’s security team. No victims have been found.

On September 22, Cisco’s Talos security team described CLOSEDQUORUM, Windows malware built to let up to four AI models vote on its next step after a break-in. Talos also released CAIRN, a free tool that looks for AI use in malware. It has found no victims, and the public sample cannot run as shipped.

5 min read