A group called CyberCartel reportedly used AI agents to hit more than 400 Latin American targets, a sign that fast, automated attacks on money accounts are here.
A hacking group called CyberCartel reportedly used AI agents to break into banks and payments companies in Latin America. The Information reported it on Wednesday, Oct. 21, citing research from the security startup Straiker. The group is said to have targeted more than 400 businesses, using AI tools to steal passwords and customer data and to get into customer bank accounts with little human effort.
An AI agent is a program that can carry out tasks on its own, step by step, instead of waiting for a person to tell it each move. According to the report, CyberCartel linked many of these agents together. They were powered by models such as Anthropic's Claude and Grok, which the report ties to SpaceX.
The Information called the research one of the first detailed reports of hackers using AI models to automate break-ins at financial institutions. Anthropic said it opened an investigation after Straiker shared its findings and quickly blocked the hackers' use of Claude.
Speed and volume are the worry. The report says AI lets attackers work so fast, and against so many targets at once, that company defenses get overwhelmed. Straiker's CEO, Ankur Shah, put it bluntly: "Offense is way ahead of defense right now, that's just how it is." He added that enterprises are not ready.
Banks are not short on tools. A PYMNTS Intelligence report from September found that close to 80% of financial institutions named the complexity of new technology as their chief barrier to innovation, up from 48% a year earlier. Many are stacking overlapping systems that do not work well together.
The confirmed targets were banks and payments companies in Latin America, and their customers. Nothing in the report says the attacks reached other regions. Still, the same methods could be used elsewhere, so anyone with a bank or payment account has a reason to tighten up.
The alert box above lists the steps. They come down to making stolen passwords less useful and spotting trouble early. Those habits matter more when attacks run on machines that never get tired.
Several things are not yet known. The report as provided does not name the banks hit, say how many attacks succeeded, or say how much money or data was taken. It also does not say whether the makers of the other AI tools involved took action. Companies are reportedly investing heavily in AI-powered defenses, so expect more reports on this kind of attack.
Turn on two-step login and use a unique password for each financial account, because AI-driven attacks work fast and at scale.
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