How AI Assistants Are Moving the Security Goalposts
- Reference: 0180934820
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/03/09/1912259/how-ai-assistants-are-moving-the-security-goalposts
- Source link:
> AI-based assistants or "agents" -- autonomous programs that have access to the user's computer, files, online services and can automate virtually any task -- are growing in popularity with developers and IT workers. But as so many eyebrow-raising headlines over the past few weeks have shown, these powerful and assertive new tools are [1]rapidly shifting the security priorities for organizations , while blurring the lines between data and code, trusted co-worker and insider threat, ninja hacker and novice code jockey.
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> The new hotness in AI-based assistants -- OpenClaw (formerly known as ClawdBot and Moltbot) -- has seen rapid adoption since its release in November 2025. OpenClaw is an open-source autonomous AI agent designed to run locally on your computer and proactively take actions on your behalf without needing to be prompted. If that sounds like a risky proposition or a dare, consider that OpenClaw is most useful when it has complete access to your entire digital life, where it can then manage your inbox and calendar, execute programs and tools, browse the Internet for information, and integrate with chat apps like Discord, Signal, Teams or WhatsApp.
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> Other more established AI assistants like Anthropic's Claude and Microsoft's Copilot also can do these things, but OpenClaw isn't just a passive digital butler waiting for commands. Rather, it's designed to take the initiative on your behalf based on what it knows about your life and its understanding of what you want done. "The testimonials are remarkable," the AI security firm Snyk [2]observed . "Developers building websites from their phones while putting babies to sleep; users running entire companies through a lobster-themed AI; engineers who've set up autonomous code loops that fix tests, capture errors through webhooks, and open pull requests, all while they're away from their desks." You can probably already see how this experimental technology could go sideways in a hurry. [...]
Last month, Meta AI safety director Summer Yue said OpenClaw unexpectedly [3]started mass-deleting messages in her email inbox, despite instructions to confirm those actions first. She wrote: "Nothing humbles you like telling your OpenClaw 'confirm before acting' and watching it speedrun deleting your inbox. I couldn't stop it from my phone. I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb."
Krebs also noted the many misconfigured OpenClaw installations users had set up, leaving their administrative dashboards publicly accessible online. [4]According to pentester Jamieson O'Reilly , "a cursory search revealed hundreds of such servers exposed online." When those exposed interfaces are accessed, attackers can retrieve the agent's configuration and sensitive credentials. O'Reilly warned attackers could access "every credential the agent uses -- from API keys and bot tokens to OAuth secrets and signing keys."
"You can pull the full conversation history across every integrated platform, meaning months of private messages and file attachments, everything the agent has seen," O'Reilly added. And because you control the agent's perception layer, you can manipulate what the human sees. Filter out certain messages. Modify responses before they're displayed."
[1] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/03/how-ai-assistants-are-moving-the-security-goalposts/
[2] https://snyk.io/articles/clawdbot-ai-assistant/
[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/02/24/1950253/meta-ai-security-researcher-said-an-openclaw-agent-ran-amok-on-her-inbox
[4] https://x.com/theonejvo/status/2015401219746128322
Ai are lying teenagers (Score:2)
Giving them authority to do ANYTHING is incredibly stupid.
Would you give a teenager your car's pink slip, your home's title, the password to your bank accounts and tell it to file your taxes?
Nope. Do not give any AI any permissions to do more than send your messages.
Frankly, I do not think it is safe to give them the information the internet ones collect without my knowledge or consent.
Re: (Score:2)
> Would you give a teenager your car's pink slip, your home's title, the password to your bank accounts and tell it to file your taxes?
I'm not an accountant, but if you're using your car and home titles, I think you're already doing your taxes wrong. :-)
sudo make me a sandwich (Score:1)
Or, more precisely,
sudo $(dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/stdout count=1)
Step 3: profit!
Clueless people doing clueless things (Score:2)
With technology they do not understand. Is this a security risk? Yes, massively so. Can it be fixed? To the best of our knowledge only by not running these agents except inside heavily isolated sand-boxes. Which kind of defeats their purposes. But LLMs cannot ever be really reliable ans that is what is needed for any security-critical mechanism. Too many people are just bright-eyed naive and expect things from their shiny new fetish that it cannot deliver.
In other words, bad idea is bad idea.
Re: (Score:2)
> With technology they do not understand. Is this a security risk? Yes, massively so. Can it be fixed? To the best of our knowledge only by not running these agents except inside heavily isolated sand-boxes. Which kind of defeats their purposes. But LLMs cannot ever be really reliable ans that is what is needed for any security-critical mechanism. Too many people are just bright-eyed naive and expect things from their shiny new fetish that it cannot deliver.
> In other words, bad idea is bad idea.
This is the biggest problem with the current AI prophets' promises. People in this day and age are stupid enough to believe the peddlers of the new snake oil outright, rather than viewing this new thing as an avenue of research that must be tested before being given the keys to "do the things." For some reason, people just believe when it's new tech, without proof. And beyond that, with all kinds of proof that the things being promised aren't just not yet real, they may very well be impossible to achieve wi
can automate virtually any task... (Score:2)
...poorly
Here's my excuse: Preserving the evidence (Score:2)
So I'd use such an agent to extract the relevant evidence from my google account and delete the rest of the stuff. The better to not pay granny wolf google. (That's supposed to be Little Red Riding Hood joke.)
Actually I think a lot of that data is actually stuff the google has decided to store about me and now they want me to pay for the privilege of spying on myself? Sorry, no sale. Anyone else getting nagging warning about how their google account is suddenly almost full? (I already stomped on a big chunk