Researchers warn {that a} newly recognized open-source AI safety testing platform referred to as CyberStrikeAI was utilized by the identical risk actor behind a current marketing campaign that breached tons of of Fortinet FortiGate firewalls.
Final month, BleepingComputer reported on an AI-assisted hacking operation that compromised greater than 500 FortiGate units in 5 weeks. The risk actor behind this marketing campaign used a number of servers, together with an online server at 212.11.64[.]250.
In a brand new report, Senior Menace Intel Advisor for Group Cymru, Will Thomas (aka BushidoToken), says that the identical IP tackle was noticed operating the comparatively new CyberStrikeAI AI-powered safety testing platform.
Analyzing NetFlow knowledge, Group Cymru recognized a “CyberStrikeAI” service banner operating on port 8080 on 212.11.64[.]250 and noticed community communications between that IP and Fortinet FortiGate units the risk actor focused. The FortiGate marketing campaign infrastructure was final seen operating CyberStrikeAI on January 30, 2026.
CyberStrikeAI’s GitHub repository describes itself as an “AI-native security testing platform built in Go” that integrates over 100 safety instruments, an clever orchestration engine, predefined safety roles, and a abilities system.
“Through native MCP protocol and AI agents, it enables end-to-end automation from conversational commands to vulnerability discovery, attack-chain analysis, knowledge retrieval, and result visualization—delivering an auditable, traceable, and collaborative testing environment for security teams,” reads the undertaking description. The software contains an AI resolution engine appropriate with fashions reminiscent of GPT, Claude, and DeepSeek, a password-protected internet UI with audit logging and SQLite persistence, and a dashboard for vulnerability administration, job orchestration, and attack-chain visualization.
Its tooling permits it to conduct a full assault chain, together with community scanning (nmap, masscan), internet and utility testing (sqlmap, nikto, gobuster), exploitation frameworks (metasploit, pwntools), password cracking instruments (hashcat, john), and post-exploitation frameworks (mimikatz, bloodhound, impacket).
By combining these instruments with AI brokers and an orchestrator, CyberStrikeAI allows operators, even low-skilled ones, to automate assaults in opposition to targets. Group Cymru warns that AI-native orchestration engines like this might speed up automated focusing on of uncovered edge units, together with firewalls and VPN home equipment.
The researchers say they noticed 21 distinctive IP addresses operating CyberStrikeAI between January 20 and February 26, 2026, with servers primarily hosted in China, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Extra infrastructure was noticed in the US, Japan, and Europe.
“As adversaries increasingly embrace AI-native orchestration engines, we expect to see a rise in automated, AI-driven targeting of vulnerable edge devices, similar to the observed reconnaissance and targeting of Fortinet FortiGate appliances,” explains Thomas.
“In the near future, defenders must be prepared for an environment where tools like CyberStrikeAI, alongside the developer’s other AI-assisted privilege escalation projects like PrivHunterAI and InfiltrateX, significantly lower the barrier to entry for complex network exploitation.”
The researchers additionally examined the profile of the CyberStrikeAI developer, who goes by the alias “Ed1s0nZ.”
Primarily based on public repositories linked to the account, the developer has labored on extra AI-assisted safety instruments, together with PrivHunterAI, which makes use of AI fashions to detect privilege escalation vulnerabilities, and InfiltrateX, a privilege escalation scanning software.
Based on Group Cymru, the developer’s GitHub exercise reveals interactions with organizations beforehand linked to Chinese language authorities–affiliated cyber operations.
In December 2025, the developer shared CyberStrikeAI with Knownsec 404’s “Starlink Project.” Knownsec is a Chinese language cybersecurity agency with alleged hyperlinks to the Chinese language authorities.
On January 5, 2026, the developer talked about receiving a “CNNVD 2024 Vulnerability Reward Program – Level 2 Contribution Award” on their GitHub profile.
The China Nationwide Vulnerability Database (CNNVD) is believed to be operated by China’s intelligence group, which allegedly makes use of it to establish vulnerabilities for its operations. Group Cymru says the reference to CNNVD was later faraway from the developer’s profile.
The developer’s GitHub repositories are primarily written in Chinese language, suggesting they’re a Chinese language-speaking developer, and interplay with home cybersecurity organizations wouldn’t essentially be uncommon.
These new AI-powered cybersecurity instruments proceed to show how business AI providers are more and more utilized by risk actors to automate their assaults whereas, on the identical time, reducing the barrier to entry.
Final month, Google additionally reported that risk actors are abusing Gemini AI throughout all levels of cyberattacks, empowering the talents of risk actors of all ability ranges.
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