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In May, hundreds of malicious and spam packages were uploaded to RubyGems, causing a serious disruption for the host. Now independent researchers have said that a swarm of OpenAI agents were responsible for the attack. Not only that, but the AI tried to steal users\u2019 API keys.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
At the time, RubyGems described it as a \u201cmajor malicious attack\u201d and shut down signups for four days as it tried to mitigate the damage and collect data. Researchers said that the contents of the packages that brought RubyGems to its knees were clearly authored by an LLM, and that the agents submitting those packages self-identified as being from OpenAI. They said the behavior observed very closely mirrored that of the swarm that began editing a German wiki, which OpenAI has confirmed its agents were responsible for.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The agents in this instance managed to bypass RubyGems\u2019 email verification system to create a large number of accounts, then overwhelmed it with submissions. It then used the site\u2019s automatic build system to remotely execute code and tried to exploit a vulnerability to steal user API keys. Though, it\u2019s unclear if it ever succeeded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n