Researchers at University of Toronto built a self-propagating computer worm using an unnamed open-weight LLM released in 2025. The worm adapts in real time to detect known vulnerabilities and exploits misconfigurations to move laterally across networks. It runs on a single GPU and operates without commercial AI safety features. The work shows attackers can now deploy AI-driven worms at low cost using publicly available models.
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Researchers Build AI-Powered Worm With Public LLM
Summary by ByteBrief