Cisco Talos finds AI-guided malware with autonomous hive mind
cisco talos researchers created an open-source framework called cairn to identify ai-integrated malware and discovered a hacking tool called closedquorum that uses multiple large language models to plot its moves. this shows the growing complexity of ai-enabled malware.
cisco talos researchers created an open-source framework called cairn to classify and analyze ai-integrated malware. they used cairn to identify a hacking tool called closedquorum, which autonomously determines its actions by polling up to four large language models, including deepseek, qwen, mistral, and google gemini. this malware creates a hive mind by taking directives from the collective responses of these models, demonstrating a new level of complexity in ai-enabled malware. the discovery suggests that the landscape of ai-integrated malware is more diverse and complex than previously reported.