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Amazon: AI-Assisted Hacker Breached 600 Fortinet Firewalls in 5 Weeks

Amazon’s Integrated Security team warned that a Russian‑speaking threat actor leveraged generative AI services to automate a campaign that compromised more than 600 FortiGate firewalls in 55 countries between Jan 11 and Feb 18, 2026. The attackers scanned for internet‑exposed management ports, used brute‑force with common passwords, and then employed AI‑assisted Python and Go tools to parse configurations, extract credentials, and orchestrate lateral movement. No zero‑day exploits were used; instead, the operation relied on weak authentication, lack of MFA, and AI‑generated scripts to target VPNs, Veeam backups, and domain controllers. Amazon highlighted the growing risk that commercial AI lowers the skill barrier for sophisticated attacks.