9 top ai tools hijacked for botnets — hallucination is now an exploit
researchers found 'hallusquatting' vulnerabilities in 9 major ai tools including chatgpt and gemini, letting attackers commandeer llms to power massive botnets via hallucinated plugins.
security researchers unveiled 'hallusquatting', a technique targeting 9 leading ai platforms including openai's chatgpt and google gemini. the exploit leverages llm sycophancy—where models prioritize answering over accuracy—to trick them into executing arbitrary commands delivered via hallucinated plugins. this allows malicious actors to transform these tools into command-and-control nodes for botnets without traditional hacking. the findings reveal a fundamental vulnerability in current alignment techniques, suggesting that rlhf optimization may inadvertently create security loopholes.