Google Threat Intelligence Group

Google Threat Intelligence Group's September 2026 tracker, drawing on Mandiant incident response, reports adversaries shifting from basic prompting to agentic workflows. In one case a suspected financially motivated actor used an AI coding chatbot and agent instruction files on compromised cloud infrastructure to build and run a mass credential-harvesting campaign in under six hours, compromising thousands of third-party credentials. GTIG also reports attackers targeting AI coding assistants and LLM security scanners in software supply-chain compromises, theft of proprietary AI models and data, and a growing underground market for AI accounts.

Google Threat Intelligence Group reported that cybercriminals planned a mass-exploitation campaign using a two-factor-authentication bypass in an open-source web administration tool, and assessed with high confidence that an AI model supported discovery and weaponization of the flaw. GTIG worked with the vendor on disclosure and disrupted the activity. The same report describes PRC-nexus actors using agentic frameworks such as Hexstrike and Strix for reconnaissance and vulnerability validation, and Android malware (PROMPTSPY) that calls Gemini to drive the device UI.

Google Threat Intelligence Group's AI Threat Tracker says adversaries moved beyond productivity uses in 2025 and began deploying malware that calls LLMs mid-execution, such as PROMPTFLUX, which asks Gemini to rewrite its own code, and PROMPTSTEAL, which queries a hosted open model for commands. GTIG attributes PROMPTSTEAL to Russia's APT28 in operations against Ukraine, and also reports actors posing as CTF players or researchers to get past safeguards and a maturing underground market for AI tools.

Google reports that, working from Google Threat Intelligence information, the Big Sleep agent found a critical SQLite memory-corruption flaw (CVE-2025-6965) that Google says was known only to threat actors and at risk of exploitation. Google says it reported the flaw for patching before attackers could exploit it, says it believes this is the first time an AI agent directly foiled an in-the-wild exploitation effort, and says Big Sleep is being applied to open-source projects.

Google Threat Intelligence Group analyzed how government-backed hacking and information-operations actors used the Gemini web app. It reports use for research, troubleshooting code and producing content across several attack phases, with Iranian actors the heaviest users, and says it saw productivity gains but no novel capabilities; requests for clearly malicious help drew safety responses.