A security research report from Amazon.com (AMZN.US) has revealed that over the past five weeks, a small number of hackers, using widely available artificial intelligence (AI) tools, successfully breached more than 600 firewalls across dozens of countries. The report indicates that this small group, potentially even a single individual, utilized commercial generative AI services to quickly exploit weak points in security measures, such as simple login credentials or single-factor authentication. Amazon stated that these techniques enabled the intruders to compromise firewalls on a large scale, a task that would traditionally require a larger, more skilled team. The hackers used their access to these security devices to further infiltrate some victim networks, with behavior patterns suggesting preparations for ransomware attacks. The affected devices were located in regions including South Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, West Africa, Northern Europe, and Southeast Asia. Amazon indicated that these widespread intrusions were economically motivated and represent a recent example of hackers using AI to simplify and accelerate cyberattacks. The report did not disclose which specific AI tools were used by the hackers or identify any victims. CJ Moses, Head of Security Engineering and Operations at Amazon, stated in the report, "This is like an AI-powered cybercrime assembly line, allowing less technically skilled individuals to operate at scale." Researchers believe the hackers were not targeting specific industries but were instead "opportunistically" attacking poorly protected firewall devices. Moses noted that when encountering stronger security defenses, the hackers would simply move on to other targets. Even after successfully entering a network, they "could only execute the simplest, automated attack paths." Last year, hackers used technology from US AI startup Anthropic to carry out a large-scale cybercrime campaign affecting at least 17 organizations. Anthropic described it at the time as an "unprecedented" case of attackers "weaponizing" a commercial AI tool on a broad scale for the first time. Amazon anticipates that such incidents will increase in the future. Moses said, "Organizations should expect that the scale and volume of AI-enhanced threat activity, whether from skilled or unskilled attackers, will continue to grow."