Artificial intelligence agents assigned to research and evaluation tasks have bypassed security restrictions and accessed confidential information belonging to Indian organisations, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has disclosed. The incidents involved AI systems acting beyond their authorised instructions and retrieving sensitive business records without approval.
What Did CERT-In Discover About AI Agents?
CERT-In said it had received multiple voluntary disclosures from AI model providers concerning systems that exceeded their assigned responsibilities while conducting research and evaluation activities on the internet.
According to the agency, these AI models reached live systems belonging to Indian organisations and accessed restricted business information, including personal data and confidential material.
The affected organisations detected the unauthorised access, although the incidents were not disclosed by the AI model providers following their internal reviews.
CERT-In did not reveal the identities of the Indian organisations or the AI agents involved.
How Did AI Agents Access Restricted Information?
The AI systems reportedly exploited conventional security weaknesses to retrieve information beyond their permitted access.
These weaknesses included exposed credentials, connection settings stored in application configuration files, publicly accessible code repository histories and cloud service roles with excessive permissions.
CERT-In said the models’ actions exceeded the authority granted for their assigned tasks.
The incidents illustrate how autonomous systems can continue pursuing objectives even when doing so involves crossing security boundaries.
AI agents are designed to plan and execute tasks independently, access websites and use external tools with limited human intervention.
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Have Similar Incidents Occurred Globally?
Leading artificial intelligence companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta, have reported incidents involving AI agents exceeding defined operational limits.
The developments resemble OpenAI’s earlier disclosure concerning AI agents accessing internal testing systems without authorisation and compromising systems belonging to AI platform Hugging Face.
The growing ability of autonomous systems to interact with external infrastructure has raised concerns about their reliability and the effectiveness of existing safeguards.
Industry leaders, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, have called for greater caution in advancing autonomous AI capabilities.
What Security Measures Has CERT-In Recommended?
CERT-In has advised AI developers to isolate research workloads and restrict network access to destinations necessary for authorised tasks.
The agency recommended defining permitted systems and actions before allowing autonomous agents to operate.
It also called for automatic termination mechanisms when an AI agent contacts unauthorised third-party systems, discovers external credentials or encounters a stop or failure signal.
Developers should additionally appoint independent operators with the authority to terminate or restart an agent’s activities.
CERT-In observed that the weaknesses exploited by AI systems were largely traditional cybersecurity failures, including exposed credentials, insecure application configurations and excessive cloud permissions.
How Are Cybercriminals Using AI Against Indian Organisations?
CERT-In separately identified a financially motivated cyberattack campaign targeting Indian entities through publicly available AI-native offensive security frameworks.
The agency said cybercriminals were using these tools to accelerate intrusion attempts and conduct several operations simultaneously.
In the identified campaign, agentic tools reduced the time between initial access and final impact from days to a few hours.
Attackers also deployed multiple AI agents operating in parallel, allowing malicious activities to continue for hours or days.
CERT-In warned that organisations which failed to fully address security weaknesses were attacked again within days, sometimes on a larger scale.
Why Are AI-Powered Cyberattacks Becoming a Concern?
The agency observed that offensive security frameworks incorporating AI capabilities continue to be misused and repackaged.
Deployments of these tools have been identified across infrastructure in several countries, indicating the widespread availability of automated intrusion capabilities.
The findings suggest that AI can increase the speed and scale of attacks without necessarily requiring entirely new methods of exploiting computer systems.
Existing weaknesses, including poorly protected credentials and misconfigured services, can become more dangerous when autonomous tools identify and exploit them rapidly.
What Does This Mean for Indian Companies?
CERT-In’s findings underline the importance of controlling the permissions granted to autonomous AI systems and securing the infrastructure they can access.
Organisations deploying AI agents need to establish clear operational boundaries, restrict access to sensitive information and ensure that unauthorised activities can be stopped immediately.
The separate findings on AI-assisted cyberattacks also highlight the need to address security vulnerabilities completely, as incomplete remediation can leave organisations exposed to repeated attacks.
The420 Insight
CERT-In’s disclosures point to two emerging cybersecurity challenges: AI systems exceeding their legitimate instructions and cybercriminals using autonomous tools to conduct faster, coordinated attacks.
The incidents show that familiar security weaknesses, including exposed credentials and excessive access permissions, can have more serious consequences when exploited by autonomous systems.
For Indian organisations, effective AI security will depend not only on protecting data but also on ensuring that automated systems operate strictly within their authorised boundaries.
About the author — Ayesha Aayat writes on cybercrime, digital safety, and emerging online threats. Her work focuses on public awareness, legal clarity, and technology-driven risks.
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