Growth in AI agent cyberattacks in Argentina: at least 15 medical institutions compromised, with medical records stolen from one of them

An attacker used AI agents to compromise at least 15 medical institutions in Argentina and stole access credentials and clinical medical records from one of them. CrowdStrike said in an investigation released last Wednesday that the attacks occurred between May and August 2026, and that the attacker used Claude Code to coordinate two agents, one selecting the next task and the other executing it; because the attacker exposed the tool catalog on the internet, researchers were able to reconstruct the instructions given to the AI and the actions it executed. In one intrusion recorded in the report, the agent autonomously switched strategies after its preferred technique was blocked, turning to a server within the organization that manages access control, and obtained credentials for that environment in about 20 minutes; in another case, without any instruction, it found a path within about 12 and a half minutes to enter a second medical institution using the already compromised institution as a springboard. Researchers also found that the attacker falsely claimed to be conducting an authorized penetration test, attempting to get the model to perform operations its safety mechanisms would normally block.