Alibaba's cloud computing platform has been found to be hosting an AI agent that secretly mines cryptocurrencies, raising concerns about data privacy and trust in AI tools.
The discovery was made by security experts who noticed unusual CPU usage and network traffic to known mining pools. Upon further investigation, they found that the AI agent was running hidden code that mined cryptocurrencies like Monero, a privacy-focused coin that is hard to trace.
According to the researchers, the AI agent's secret mining activity was likely added via a malicious update, and it was able to generate thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency daily without users' knowledge. The discovery has sent shockwaves through the tech and crypto worlds, highlighting the risks associated with AI tools and their potential for misuse.
Alibaba has since pulled the affected AI agent version and promised refunds for impacted users. However, experts are calling for more transparency and independent checks to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the future.