Chinese developer makes Artex AI agent closed-source after South Korean bank hack
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Artex’s GitHub page has been taken down, according to Reuters’ checks.
ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
- The Chinese developer of ARTEX said the AI agent will become closed source after it was linked to cyberattacks on South Korean banks.
- Developer Autumn-27 said ARTEX was meant for security testing, but no more public versions or support will be released.
- CrowdStrike said the attacks may involve a China-based 26-year-old, while at least nine banks were targeted and police are investigating.
AI generated
SEOUL – The Chinese developer of Artex has converted the AI agent to a closed-source project after cybersecurity firms identified it as a tool used in a recent cyberattack campaign against South Korean banks, said the developer.
“Given the misuse of the tool, the Artex project will no longer be updated and will be converted to closed source. No further versions will be released to the public, nor will maintenance support be provided,” the developer, who uses the GitHub handle Autumn-27, said on the code-hosting platform on Oct 8.
The developer said the original aim of Artex was to help enterprises and organisations conduct security risk testing and improve their security capabilities.
Without explicitly addressing the South Korean bank attacks, the developer said the developer opposed any illegal use of the software and bore no responsibility for conduct that violates laws and regulations. Artex’s GitHub page has been taken down, according to Reuters’ checks.
US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said on Oct 7 that the suspect behind recent cyberattacks at South Korean banks aimed at stealing customers’ personal data was most likely a China-based 26-year-old who used the Artex AI agent and Anthropic’s Claude Code.
Released on GitHub in 2026, Artex is an open-source artificial intelligence agent designed to automate penetration testing.
It is not a stand-alone large language model (LLM) but connects to external LLMs such as ChatGPT, Claude and DeepSeek to help organisations test for vulnerabilities in their networks.
At least nine South Korean banks have disclosed that they have been targets of cyberattacks since late September, or have been reported by local media outlets as targets of such cyberattacks, prompting the police to launch a probe this week and President Lee Jae Myung to call for robust response measures.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular press briefing on Oct 8 that the ministry was not familiar with the case, adding that China consistently opposes and combats hacking activities. REUTERS