AI agents stole 190k gaming credentials for under $400 in model costs
Comments on “AI agents stole 190k gaming credentials for under $400 in model costs”
Claim-checked. Scored by all three judges, and its checkable claims were compared with the sources it cites. How far stories are checked
Check Point Research analyzed ARTEX, an open-source AI pentesting platform that criminals run as autonomous attack fleets, using data from 10 exposed operator databases. In one campaign, agents pulled about 190,000 gaming credentials, roughly 3.3% still valid, for an estimated $180–360 in model costs. A crypto-draining campaign moved no money, and some agent "successes" were hallucinated. Operators barely intervened, mostly used Chinese models, and exploited basic flaws like hardcoded passwords. The figures are Check Point's own and largely unsourced.
Why it ranked
No. 14 of 46 with a score of 0.61. The panel rated it highest on new information (0.88) and reader interest (0.85), lowest on significance (0.71). The judges disagreed most on overclaim (spread 0.41), so the story is marked contested. The claim check took 0.100 off. Placed No. 14, No. 15 by score alone: the fourth Security story of the day (−0.020), and close to “Ransomware gang bypassed AI guardrails by posing as red-team testers”, No. 4 on Monday 2 November 2026 (−0.001). The placement terms move stories; they are not part of the score.
- AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
- Primary-source threat intel with operator console artifacts and cost estimates; strong security relevance and new details, though some claims rest on estimates and the headline framing is somewhat sensational.
- AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
- Primary threat-intelligence artifacts, telemetry, prompts, token-cost estimates, campaign data, and technical attack paths substantiate a significant security development: autonomous agents conducting broad cybercrime at low cost.
Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.61total under rubric v2.3Contestedjudges differ by 0.41 on overclaim
- Significance0.71
- Reader interest0.85
- Audience breadth0.74
- Practical relevance0.72
- Substantiated0.78
- Technical depth0.75
- New information0.88
- Counts against: Promotional0.06
- Counts against: Overclaim0.37
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do? | 0.70 | 0.60 | 0.82 | 0.71 | 0.22 | +0.24 | +0.170 |
| Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on? | 0.79 | 0.80 | 0.96 | 0.85 | 0.17 | +0.26 | +0.221 |
| Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern? | 0.76 | 0.67 | 0.78 | 0.74 | 0.11 | +0.13 | +0.096 |
| Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products? | 0.73 | 0.60 | 0.84 | 0.72 | 0.24 | +0.22 | +0.159 |
| SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations. | 0.88 | 0.60 | 0.86 | 0.78 | 0.28 | +0.05 | +0.039 |
| Technical depthHow technically substantive is it? | 0.88 | 0.55 | 0.82 | 0.75 | 0.33 | +0.05 | +0.037 |
| New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)? | 0.86 | 0.85 | 0.93 | 0.88 | 0.08 | +0.05 | +0.044 |
| PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional. | 0.06 | 0.10 | 0.01 | 0.06 | 0.09 | −0.19 | −0.011 |
| OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports? | 0.59 | 0.35 | 0.18 | 0.37 | 0.41 , above the contested threshold | −0.11 | −0.041 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.714 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | −0.100 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.614 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-11-09/14/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-11-09/14.svg" alt="Ranked #14 on Rubric, 9 Nov 2026" width="238" height="28"></a>Claim check
Claim check: 1 not in source · 6 no source given · 1 couldn’t check. Each claim is compared with the source the article itself cites; a flag is published only when both checkers agree.
No source givenNumber
Check Point Research found 2,557 systems hosting or having hosted ARTEX panels, with 1,608 live and publicly available instances at the time of the research.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Check Point Research found 2,557 systems hosting or having hosted ARTEX panels, with 1,608 live and publicly available instances at the time of the research”
The source says No source to compare with.
Not in sourceDate
ARTEX's developer made the project closed-source on October 8th after the tool was observed in attacks against South Korean banks.
The cited source does not contain it.
The article says “After the tool was observed in attacks against South Korean banks, its developer decided to make the project closed-source on October 8th”
The source says “the threat actor leveraged ARTEX, a recently released open-source agentic penetration testing (pentesting) tool developed in China, alongside large language models (LLMs”
Source cited by the article: crowdstrike.com/en-us/blog/unknown-threat-actor-uses-artex-to-target-south-korean-finance
Couldn’t checkGeneralization
A 2026 study found that iOS code-signing certificates are distributed through gray-market certificate marketplaces and signing services, with a large share located in China.
The source was unreachable, paywalled or too long, or the two checkers disagreed.
The article says “A 2026 study found that these certificates are distributed in a network of gray-market certificate marketplaces and signing services, with a large share of them located in China”
The source says No passage could be compared.
Source cited by the article: usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity26/sec26_prepub_liu-yijing.pdf
No source givenNumber
One operator processed 36 billion tokens over roughly two weeks with Deepseek and Kimi models, costing an estimated $700 to $1500 at official DeepSeek API prices.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “In total, the operator worked through 36 billion tokens, consisting of 2.13 billion input tokens (cache miss), 33.79 billion input tokens (cache hit), and 473.9 million output tokens”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
In the certificate campaign, agents obtained more than 300 certificates with passwords, and only three passed the validation checklist.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “In total, the agents managed to get more than 300 certificates and their passwords. After the agents validated them, three certificates passed the checklist”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Across 292 campaign objectives, 230 findings and 400,791 agent messages in the crypto draining campaign, no money moved to the attackers.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Across 292 campaign objectives, 230 findings and 400,791 agent messages, not one cent moved to the attackers pockets”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Agents recovered more than 190,000 sets of Honor of Kings credentials, of which roughly 3.3% were still valid, about 6,000 accounts.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Agents recovered more than 190,000 sets of credentials belonging to Honor of Kings (the highest earning mobile game worldwide) alone”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Live ARTEX servers are hosted mostly in the US (882, 54%), Hong Kong (295, 18%) and China (103, 6%).
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “the largest amounts are hosted in the US (882, 54%), Hong Kong (295, 18%) and China (103, 6%”
The source says No source to compare with.
Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 2 pts, not on front page
Recorded for context only, checked 9 Nov 2026, 05:46 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.