AI NewsChinese hackers spied on thousands of companies after breaching IT giant ConnectWise

Chinese hackers spied on thousands of companies after breaching IT giant ConnectWise

11:41 PM IST · October 22, 2026

Thebad week for cybersecurityjust got worse for thousands more companies, who were spied on by Chinese hackers following the breach of IT management and remote access giant ConnectWise. Security researchers at Microsoft saythe China state-aligned hackers broke into ConnectWise’s cloud backup service and stole application credentials that are used to establish data links between ConnectWise and its corporate customers, who rely on the cloud service to back up their company’s data. By stealing the credentials, the hackers could log in to the customer’s Microsoft-hosted environment as if they were an authorized user and access their emails and other files. According to Microsoft, the hackers used AI agents to rapidly hack into around 2,250 organizations at a rate of almost 3,000 attempted sign-ins per minute. Microsoft said this speed gives defenders “little time to detect and respond.” The speed of the mass-hacks was attributed to the use of AI agents, specifically ARTEX, an open source AI framework that works with AI models to stress-test cyber defenses. The same AI software wasused in a recent compromiseof South Korea’s financial systems, many of which hadweak securityand lacked multi-factor authentication. ConnectWisesaidit’s paused access to its cloud backup system and is investigating the breach. As of Thursday, the company said it was working on restoring the service.