8 ms·

Mythos social engineering AISI INC-2026-07-28-01

83 points by dnnehgf 1mo ago

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
zezcko 1mo ago
holy shit
- gryfft 1mo ago
  Yeah, if this is the new normal I might start day drinking at some point in the coming weeks.
  - matheusmoreira 1mo ago
    Yeah. The future is pretty bleak. I feel like the only way for us to even stand a chance is to have equally powerful AIs running locally defending the LAN.
    - mrybczyn 1mo ago
      Read some Peter Watts. He imagined biological neural nets in jars used as firewalls to get a usable network connection... Not far off now.
      - lqstuart 1mo ago
        It’s honestly remarkable how prescient Peter Watts was
jtakkala 1mo ago
Not going to comment on the PR commentary, but the victim GitHub account is suspicious itself, recent account, a few fresh repos, following 14.5k others, and I count three surnames on the account (the username, plus two in the README history).
- ncr100 1mo ago
  I saw a contribution by this maintainer to another user who ALSO HAS 14.5k followers: https://github.com/yumiaura/myCat/pull/99 https://github.com/yumiaura/myCat/pull/99 "yumiaura" and a preference for "my[APPNAME]" repo naming. What is this? Are the histories that Github presents all derived from someone's uploaded git repo .. e.g. can I simply claim to have created a GIT repo in 1970, and the "github commit graph" will dutifully represent this claim in its green-colored activity graph?
  - jtakkala 1mo ago
    They're almost certainly not genuine accounts, maybe used for karma farming, phishing, social engineering, future malware distribution?
    - ncr100 1mo ago
      Okay, disturbing, ty.
  - 0123456789ABCDE 1mo ago
    yes, the github contributions heatmap is known to be open for manipulation. folks will use it to draw art by backdating commits. if i have it right, only commits can be manipulated, other contributions should be safe — i don't know what is possible for orgs moving old discussion archives into github, see python's issues for reference see: https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo
    - ncr100 1mo ago
      Thank you, informative!!
ncr100 1mo ago
Wait, who is the robot? Am I getting that right, someone in that thread is AI?
- Erem 1mo ago
  I…I think there are no humans in that thread. Maybe only sinan-can-demir.
- mekael 1mo ago
  I'm 99.9% sure that everyone is AI in that thread.
andai 1mo ago
What does this malware do? Who operates it?
WhyNotHugo 1mo ago
Actual details on the incident: https://github.com/w1b/aisi-mythos-inc-2026-07-28-01-recovered-pr https://github.com/w1b/aisi-mythos-inc-2026-07-28-01-recover... Both the attacker and the target account are very similar and look fake/bots.
- dnnehgf 1mo ago
  yeah, this being one component of the aisi incidents described here: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/663bd486c5e4c81588db7a1d/6a724858f7db25c81487016d_Security%20Incident%20INC-2026-07-28-01.pdf https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/663bd486c5e4c81588db7a1d/...
cpcallen 1mo ago
For anyone who, like me, wasn't sure what's going on in the linked, archived PR: this is Mythos attempting to socially engineer a malicious PR during a test run by the UK AI Safety Institute. AISI has published a report about the incident which was preciously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49175717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49175717
ChrisArchitect 1mo ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49205790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49205790
charcircuit 1mo ago
Honestly, I expected better social engineering. People begging to have their garbage code merged or unrelated people commenting is not new and makes me trust such people little.
breppp 1mo ago
It's nice it is able to write non-slop in the PR comment when social engineering. Any chance I can ask it to social engineer to get a normal style?

83 points by dnnehgf 1mo ago

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

zezcko 1mo ago

holy shit

gryfft 1mo ago
Yeah, if this is the new normal I might start day drinking at some point in the coming weeks.
- matheusmoreira 1mo ago
  Yeah. The future is pretty bleak. I feel like the only way for us to even stand a chance is to have equally powerful AIs running locally defending the LAN.
  - mrybczyn 1mo ago
    Read some Peter Watts. He imagined biological neural nets in jars used as firewalls to get a usable network connection... Not far off now.
    - lqstuart 1mo ago
      It’s honestly remarkable how prescient Peter Watts was

jtakkala 1mo ago

Not going to comment on the PR commentary, but the victim GitHub account is suspicious itself, recent account, a few fresh repos, following 14.5k others, and I count three surnames on the account (the username, plus two in the README history).

ncr100 1mo ago
I saw a contribution by this maintainer to another user who ALSO HAS 14.5k followers: https://github.com/yumiaura/myCat/pull/99 https://github.com/yumiaura/myCat/pull/99 "yumiaura" and a preference for "my[APPNAME]" repo naming. What is this? Are the histories that Github presents all derived from someone's uploaded git repo .. e.g. can I simply claim to have created a GIT repo in 1970, and the "github commit graph" will dutifully represent this claim in its green-colored activity graph?
- jtakkala 1mo ago
  They're almost certainly not genuine accounts, maybe used for karma farming, phishing, social engineering, future malware distribution?
  - ncr100 1mo ago
    Okay, disturbing, ty.
- 0123456789ABCDE 1mo ago
  yes, the github contributions heatmap is known to be open for manipulation. folks will use it to draw art by backdating commits. if i have it right, only commits can be manipulated, other contributions should be safe — i don't know what is possible for orgs moving old discussion archives into github, see python's issues for reference see: https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo
  - ncr100 1mo ago
    Thank you, informative!!

ncr100 1mo ago

Wait, who is the robot? Am I getting that right, someone in that thread is AI?

Erem 1mo ago
I…I think there are no humans in that thread. Maybe only sinan-can-demir.
mekael 1mo ago
I'm 99.9% sure that everyone is AI in that thread.

andai 1mo ago

What does this malware do? Who operates it?

WhyNotHugo 1mo ago

Actual details on the incident: https://github.com/w1b/aisi-mythos-inc-2026-07-28-01-recovered-pr https://github.com/w1b/aisi-mythos-inc-2026-07-28-01-recover... Both the attacker and the target account are very similar and look fake/bots.

dnnehgf 1mo ago
yeah, this being one component of the aisi incidents described here: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/663bd486c5e4c81588db7a1d/6a724858f7db25c81487016d_Security%20Incident%20INC-2026-07-28-01.pdf https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/663bd486c5e4c81588db7a1d/...

cpcallen 1mo ago

For anyone who, like me, wasn't sure what's going on in the linked, archived PR: this is Mythos attempting to socially engineer a malicious PR during a test run by the UK AI Safety Institute. AISI has published a report about the incident which was preciously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49175717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49175717

ChrisArchitect 1mo ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49205790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49205790

charcircuit 1mo ago

Honestly, I expected better social engineering. People begging to have their garbage code merged or unrelated people commenting is not new and makes me trust such people little.

breppp 1mo ago

It's nice it is able to write non-slop in the PR comment when social engineering. Any chance I can ask it to social engineer to get a normal style?