According to The Register, a single attacker used three open-source AI agents to break into a Fortune 500 hospitality company, a major US airline, and more than 25 other organizations. The report puts the attacker's AI-related bill at an average of $25 per completed scan, suggesting that these agents can be run at very low marginal cost.
The source does not name the agents or the victims in the excerpt, and it does not detail the specific methods used. What is clear is the pattern: widely available open-source agents plus cheap AI compute were enough to mount dozens of successful intrusions.
The compute angle is significant. At $25 per completed scan, the economics of AI-assisted attacks start to look like routine automated scanning rather than expensive, bespoke operations. If those costs stay this low, organizations may need to expect more of these open-source agent-driven campaigns.