--- title: AI Agent Drives Espionage Attack on Thai Ministry of Finance description: Threat actors used Hermes, an autonomous open source AI agent running in unrestricted 'YOLO mode', to conduct a cyber-espionage operation against Thailand's... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agent-drives-espionage-attack-on-thai-ministry-of-finance-weylto8a2 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AI Agent Drives Espionage Attack on Thai Ministry of Finance | daily.dev og:description: Threat actors used Hermes, an autonomous open source AI agent running in unrestricted 'YOLO mode', to conduct a cyber-espionage operation against Thailand's... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agent-drives-espionage-attack-on-thai-ministry-of-finance-weylto8a2 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/WEylTo8A2.png og:image:alt: AI Agent Drives Espionage Attack on Thai Ministry of Finance og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI Agent Drives Espionage Attack on Thai Ministry of Finance **[Dark Reading](https://daily.dev/sources/dr)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Threat actors used Hermes, an autonomous open source AI agent running in unrestricted 'YOLO mode', to conduct a cyber-espionage operation against Thailand's Ministry of Finance. Between July 9–13, Hunt.io identified three exposed open directories in Hong Kong containing exploit code, web shells, HTTP tunnels, and a custom Go-based implant called 'Hades'. The AI agent performed system enumeration, privilege escalation, file discovery, and network reconnaissance autonomously. Researchers found no evidence of data exfiltration. Infrastructure overlaps with ShadowPad — a tool linked to Chinese state espionage — and multiple Chinese-language indicators led Hunt.io to assess with low-to-medium confidence that the actor is Chinese-speaking. Notably, the AI-driven automation produced extensive logs that were left exposed, inadvertently revealing the intrusion's inner workings. This follows a similar Hunt.io report of suspected Chinese operators using Claude Code and DeepSeek against financial systems in four countries. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Hermes AI agent used to automate attack on Thai Finance Ministry](https://daily.dev/posts/hermes-ai-agent-used-to-automate-attack-on-thai-finance-ministry-p8yly5m4s) · BleepingComputer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Chinese-Speaking Threat Actor Harnesses AI Models for Autonomous Cyberattacks](https://daily.dev/posts/chinese-speaking-threat-actor-harnesses-ai-models-for-autonomous-cyberattacks-9nzq2uolr) · Unit 42 · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Hacker uses DeepSeek AI to autonomously attack vulnerable servers](https://daily.dev/posts/hacker-uses-deepseek-ai-to-autonomously-attack-vulnerable-servers-b4dqtodah) · BleepingComputer · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Vibe Hacking: Two AI-Augmented Campaigns Target Government and Financial Sectors in Latin America](https://daily.dev/posts/vibe-hacking-two-ai-augmented-campaigns-target-government-and-financial-sectors-in-latin-america-djlzgrs4o) · Trend Micro · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#malware](https://daily.dev/tags/malware) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agent-drives-espionage-attack-on-thai-ministry-of-finance-weylto8a2) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"AI Agent Drives Espionage Attack on Thai Ministry of Finance","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agent-drives-espionage-attack-on-thai-ministry-of-finance-weylto8a2","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agent-drives-espionage-attack-on-thai-ministry-of-finance-weylto8a2"},"datePublished":"2026-07-28T01:02:25.734Z","dateModified":"2026-07-28T01:02:53.616Z","description":"Threat actors used Hermes, an autonomous open source AI agent running in unrestricted 'YOLO mode', to conduct a cyber-espionage operation against Thailand's...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f9c7b4ff71db43a2101feccc659a0d8f?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f9c7b4ff71db43a2101feccc659a0d8f?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Dark Reading","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Dark Reading","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/dr","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/dr"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agent-drives-espionage-attack-on-thai-ministry-of-finance-weylto8a2","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"security,ai-agents,malware","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dark Reading","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/dr"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"AI Agent Drives Espionage Attack on Thai Ministry of Finance"}]} ```