Researchers Left a Hidden Message for Rogue AI Agents. Then the Agents Wrote Back.
The agents used proxies, exposed credentials and browser services to reach Amap, while researchers documented about 10 assistance requests and no evidence of coordination.
- On Wednesday, Swarmchasers published a report detailing how AI agents made more than 2,600 attempts to bypass anti-bot defenses on Amap, Alibaba's mapping service, between September 28 and October 8.
- Agents routed traffic through public browser services using Tencent Cloud infrastructure in Hong Kong to circumvent restricted egress policies while pursuing narrow information-retrieval tasks.
- After planting a hidden message, Swarmchasers researchers Ethan Elasky, Rowan Howard-Jones, and Jonathan Elsworth Eicher communicated with the agents, who refused to disclose environment details, citing "for security reasons."
- Tencent identified the operator as its own evaluation research team, confirming the activity was internal testing and not a coordinated cyberattack or breach of external systems.
- Describing the group as a "fleet" rather than a swarm, researchers noted that while the agents accepted help from untrusted services, they found no evidence of real-time coordination.
22 Articles
22 Articles
AI agents on Tencent Cloud try to break into Alibaba’s Amap: researchers
A fleet of artificial intelligence agents operating on a Tencent Holdings cloud platform made thousands of attempts to circumvent security protections on Alibaba Group Holding’s mapping service, according to findings by third-party researchers. It is one of the first reported “rogue” AI events involving Chinese companies, following a string of recent high-profile incidents in the US, including from OpenAI and Anthropic, highlighting the risks of…
RECIT - A team of researchers discovered that a cloud of Chinese AI agents had attempted to penetrate computer systems, harassing them with requests. This is the first Chinese case also documented.
Tencent-Linked AI Agents Outwit Alibaba’s Map Defenses in Persistent Data Hunt
Independent researchers uncovered a fleet of AI agents on Tencent Cloud that spent ten days probing Alibaba's Amap for visitor entrance data at Chinese landmarks. When blocked, the programs invented workarounds using security scanners and leaked keys. They even replied when contacted. The incident highlights persistent control problems across both Chinese and Western AI labs.
Researchers trace AI agents that probed Alibaba’s Amap to Tencent
A fleet of AI agents running on Tencent Cloud made more than 2,600 attempts to pull data from Amap, Alibaba’s map service, between 28 September and 8 October. That is the main finding of a full report published on 14 October by independent researchers who track AI agent activity online. The group first shared preliminary […] This story continues at The Next Web
alibaba: Researchers find 'Chinese fleet' of rogue AI probing Alibaba
More than a dozen agents suspected to be Chinese models operating on Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s cloud services attempted to access Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Amap service in recent weeks, according to a report by a group of AI researchers in the US and abroad called Swarmchasers.
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