GoKawiilCrowdStrike: China-linked Vapor Panda used ARTEX AI to hit 200+ organizations
CrowdStrike reports that a China-nexus threat actor it tracks as Vapor Panda used the ARTEX AI penetration-testing framework, alongside DeepSeek and another commercial language model, to target over 200 organizations in 14 countries starting October 17. The campaign hit government ministries, telecoms, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, defense, nuclear and financial sector targets, compromising at least nine organizations and conducting password spraying and credential scanning against at least a dozen more.