GoKawiilA Chinese-speaking threat actor is using the DeepSeek AI model and the open-source Hermes Agent to conduct autonomous cyberattacks on exposed servers with limited human involvement.
The activity was discovered by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 researchers after Hermes accidentally created a web server from its home directory, exposing the attacker's environment, including API keys, exploit scripts, target lists, shell history, and AI attack logs.
Unit 42 attributed the activity to a China-based threat actor operating under the aliases "knaithe" and "KnYuan," who calls themself a "binary security researcher."
While the autonomous attacks observed by Unit 42 did not successfully compromise the targeted servers, the researchers say the campaign illustrates an offensive AI workflow capable of discovering, evaluating, and attacking vulnerable systems.
"While the observed campaign had limited impacts, the workflow confirms a functional, end-to-end autonomous offensive capability," Unit 42 said.
DeepSeek used for autonomous attacks
The threat actor used DeepSeek as the reasoning engine behind Hermes Agent, an open-source AI framework capable of interacting with operating system terminals, running commands, and connecting to the internet.
The agent supports a "Yolo" mode that allows it to operate and execute commands, even risky ones, without first requesting permission from its operator.
Hermes was configured to accept instructions from a Telegram channel, use custom offensive-security skills, and integrate with the FOFA internet asset search engine.
Unit 42 recovered a May 2026 session in which the operator appears to have provided only an initial task, after which the agent conducted the remaining activity autonomously without human feedback.
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