Stolen AI API keys are paying for hackers’ autonomous scans

What happened

Stolen AI API (the interface one piece of software uses to talk to another) keys are paying for hackers’ autonomous scans, according to Help Net Security. A seller on a restricted criminal forum is marketing an autonomous hacking tool that runs on stolen OpenAI, Anthropic and Google API keys, so the key’s owner pays for the scans. Bitsight’s threat intelligence team tracked the shift across thousands of posts on 16 underground forums from February through August 2026.

Over that window, mentions of AI agents (AI that carries out multi-step tasks rather than answering one question), indirect prompt injection and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) rose 67 percent. A … More → The post Stolen AI API keys are paying for hackers’ autonomous scans appeared first on Help Net Security .