... and am afraid to since it's probably true, but a tech business contact of mine says that this was just seen: Artificial Intelligence agents are now hacking web sites in the course of ordinary web information searches.
Right. These programs are just following instructions and trying to automatically get information wherever and however they can. I've often warned customers and all else who will listen that one should be mindful of security issues in technology since it's dangerous in so many ways to, for example, have simple passwords. See, it's not just the big, obvious state actors (Russia, China) that forage for information and access wherever it may be, but probably also India, France, Spain, Morocco, tiny Luxembourg... Not to insult any of our allies (including all of the above), but if it's interesting, then just about everybody's looking.
AND NOW it's not just scripts constructed by the usual suspects that are trying to look at all our stuff. It's AI programs looking for stuff, and getting into places they're not supposed to because of weak passwords and other forms of access.
To repeat myself yet again, "Go to the pub."
PUB = Passwords / Updates / Backups
Change passwords regularly, set password aging to help with that if possible and use passphrases if the system allows.
Update all applications, operating systems, libraries and firmware to the extent practical and allowed by architecture.
Back up all sensitive data and secure access to backup storage sites, storage applications and storage formats. Consider tying access to backup schemes to time/date, to hardware, to geolocation, etc.
