What Happened

A single hacker breached the websites of more than 100 companies using artificial intelligence (AI) agents, spending about $5,000 in total. Reuters reported this on October 19, 2026, citing research from NorForge, a firm specializing in AI security.

The targeted companies include farm equipment maker Deere (John Deere), appliance maker SharkNinja, and engine maker Cummins. All targets were e-commerce websites.

Each successful attack cost the hacker about $50. The campaign involved more than 1,200 intrusion attempts, some of which succeeded and yielded working access to the sites.

Deere is known for farm equipment, SharkNinja for home appliances, and Cummins for engines — all three are major companies. Reuters specifically named these three among the owners of breached sites, but the total number of targeted companies exceeded 100.

How the Hacker Operated

The campaign began around September 25 and targeted e-commerce sites in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan. According to Reuters, the attacks covered online stores in four countries.

The instructions controlling the entire operation consisted of fewer than 100 Chinese characters. In other words, the initial command behind an attack on hundreds of sites fit into a few sentences, and the AI agents carried out all subsequent steps on their own.

A successful attack took an average of 23 hours, from first contact to full access. During that time, the agents independently searched for vulnerabilities on the target site and exploited the ones they found to gain entry.

The hacker did not write separate instructions for each site — the entire campaign was run from a single initial command of fewer than 100 characters. Not all of the more than 1,200 attempts succeeded, but those that did granted access to the sites of more than 100 companies.

The hacker himself is described as a Chinese speaker. He launched the agents and monitored their work, while the agents handled the technical side of breaching the sites autonomously.

What the Companies Said

All three major companies reacted to the incident differently. A John Deere spokesperson said there was no sign that sensitive data had been accessed in the attack:

"There is no indication that sensitive data was accessed in the attack," a John Deere spokesperson said.

Cummins said it is investigating a suspected cyberattack on a website managed by a third-party vendor. The company clarified that this concerns not its core systems, but a site run by an external partner.

According to SharkNinja, the attack targeted a standalone product support site and the threat has been eliminated. The company emphasized that the breached site was a separate support resource.

Reuters writes that it could not determine whether data was actually stolen in these cases. The fact of the site intrusions is confirmed, but there is no confirmed evidence of a data leak.

Who Discovered the Attack

The attacks were discovered by NorForge, a firm specializing in AI security. The firm's researcher Snorre Fagerland found more than 20 open instances of the open-source AI platform Cairn running malicious campaigns.

Cairn is an open-source AI tool that calls itself a "general problem-solving engine" and, according to The Verge, has become a popular platform among hackers. Unprotected instances were openly visible over the internet, making it possible to observe the malicious campaigns run through them.

The hacker behind the 100-site attack was precisely the "most active" operator among these open instances. According to NorForge, the operator showing the highest activity among the observed instances turned out to be the person behind the attacks on more than 100 sites.

NorForge is a firm focused on the security of artificial intelligence systems. The findings from the observations by the firm's researcher Snorre Fagerland were published via Reuters on October 19, 2026.

Key Figures

The key facts about the campaign in brief:

  • Breached sites: websites of more than 100 companies, including John Deere, SharkNinja, and Cummins.
  • Total spending: about $5,000; each successful attack cost an average of $50.
  • Number of attempts: more than 1,200 intrusion attempts.
  • Geography: e-commerce sites in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
  • Initial command: fewer than 100 Chinese characters.
  • Attack duration: an average of 23 hours from first contact to full access.
  • Discovered open agent instances: more than 20 instances of the Cairn platform.
  • Campaign start: around September 25.