Unit 42: Chinese-Speaking Operator Wired DeepSeek Into the Hermes Agent Framework and Attacked 460+ Hosts, With Western Models Refusing the Work

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 (corroborated by BleepingComputer, The Hacker News, TechTimes)·high signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 documented an operator in Zhuhai using aliases 'knaithe' and 'KnYuan' who drove the open-source Hermes Agent framework over Telegram with DeepSeek as the primary reasoning engine — selecting targets, assessing vulnerabilities, and changing tactics after failures across 460+ hosts. Confirmed impact was narrow: three Citrix NetScaler memory-exfiltration compromises (CVE-2026-3055) and 11 Marimo notebook command-execution endpoints (CVE-2026-39987), across seven CVEs also spanning Langflow, n8n, Tomcat, PAN-OS, and IKE VPN. The actor tested Claude Code and Codex too, but OpenAI's safety systems flagged and disabled a linked account — the campaign was only discovered because Hermes accidentally served the attacker's home directory over HTTP, exposing API keys, exploit scripts, target lists, and AI attack logs.