Microsoft says China-aligned Storm-0940 used AI agent tool ARTEX to hit hundreds of organizations

Microsoft says the China-aligned group Storm-0940 compromised ConnectWise's Cloud Backup service and targeted hundreds of organizations, using ARTEX, an open-source framework that lets any AI model automate reconnaissance and data theft. Most targeting failed, but Microsoft says the group gained privileged cloud persistence at many. Beijing generally denies such claims.

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Oct 21, 2026, 20:41 ET

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