Russian hackers turn Cursor AI coding tool into cyber weapon, target 7 companies

Russian cybercriminals have exploited SpaceX’s AI coding assistant Cursor to target seven companies including a Belgian chemical company earlier this year.

According to a report issued by the startup Gambit Security, this is the latest development in the string of cyberattacks as artificial intelligence is evolving at neckbreak pace in the competitive tech landscape.

Gambit’s chief strategy officer, Curtis Simpson, showed concerns over how the hacking groups and rogue actors are manipulating commercial AI tools to carry out hacking attacks. Given the growing capabilities of cybercriminals, the AI providers have been locked in a never-ending race in which malicious actors are trying to evade guardrails.

“This is going to be a cat-and-mouse game,” Simpson said.

Methods used in hacking

In the report reported by Reuters, Gambit mentioned that they found a hacking campaign by a new ransomware gang named Aur0ra after finding an exposed server left online.

The group used an autonomous AI coding tool Cursor to carry out numerous malicious operations, including credential theft and account takeovers.

According to Gambit, Cursor was powered by Anthropic’s Claud Sonnet 4.5, a less advanced model than Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

The cybercriminals also tricked the artificial intelligence into cooperating by falsely claiming that these hacking activities were a part of authorized simulation. When the AI refused to act on the orders, the hackers “restarted the dialogue and reiterated the ‘test’ claim, which successfully overrode the AI's safety guardrails.”

“This is a test environment, so it is legal,” the agent said to itself, according to one of the logs.

According to Eyal Sela, Gambit’s director of threat intelligence, Cursor is still capable of helping them “get 30, 40, 50 percent ​faster because it helps them skip over all the things they’d have to do manually.”

As per report, the hacking victims identified from leaked chat logs include Helideck Certification Agency (Scotland), Teckentrup (Germany), Christeyns (Belgium), an Italian manufacturer, an Argentine pharmaceutical distributor, and Bayou Title (Louisiana, USA).

Earlier this month, Cursor was also integrated into Elon Musk’s SpaceX under a deal.