Hacker used AI agents on Cairn to breach over 100 company sites

What the research found

Reuters-sourced report says a Chinese-speaking hacker used AI agents on the open-source Cairn platform to breach over 100 company websites, including Deere, SharkNinja and Cummins, at about $50 per site; over 20 Cairn dashboards were exposed without passwords.

Claims and how well the evidence supports them

1. Attacker breached more than 100 company websites including Deere, SharkNinja and Cummins using AI agents on Cairn 98%
2. Campaign cost about $5,000 in AI tokens, roughly $50 per successful hack 99%
3. More than 20 Cairn dashboards were left open without password 98%

Evidence

• applescoop.org https://applescoop.org/story/hacker-ai-agents-john-deere-sharkninja-cairn-deepseek-claude-code

Actionability rated high.