A China-linked threat actor has been using the open source AI penetration testing framework Artex to automate a recent ConnectWise hacking campaign targeting hundreds of organizations, Microsoft reports.
Tracked as Storm-0940 and active since at least 2021, the APT is known for relying on password spraying and the exploitation of vulnerable internet-facing applications to hack into organizations across multiple sectors.
Starting in early September 2026, the threat actor was seen abusing Artex to automate its attacks, and previous reporting by CrowdStrike, Zscaler, and Recorded Future linked this AI-powered activity to attacks targeting South Korean financial institutions.
Now, Microsoft says Storm-0940 used Artex to automate intrusions into ConnectWise customers’ environments in mid-October. In response, ConnectWise suspended several services, including Cloud Backup, SaaS Security, and Cloud Management.
At the time, Huntress observed the attackers using compromised ConnectWise application credentials to access hundreds of Microsoft 365 tenants, including over 300 Entra tenants.
According to Microsoft, the threat actor relied on Artex to accelerate reconnaissance, password spraying, and OAuth application abuse. It hit over 300 accounts across eight organizations at a pace of more than 2,900 attempts per minute.
“Following the unauthorized access, Storm-0940 used Artex to attempt to sign-in to more than 2,250 tenants. While OAuth application abuse is a typical part of Storm-0940’s toolset, in this case the actor used Artex to accelerate the activity to machine speed,” Microsoft says.
Microsoft captured 151,000+ failed logon events associated with the attacks, but also observed successful authentication to customer environments using the identities of multiple ConnectWise cloud applications.
“In some of these environments, the AI agents (on behalf of the threat actor) progressed beyond authentication to Microsoft Graph and directory operations, including reconnaissance, application credential modifications to establish persistence, and changes involving identities, groups, and privileged roles,” Microsoft explains.
By changing application credentials, the attackers ensured persistent access to the victims’ environments even after the affected application was remediated, Microsoft warns.
“Organizations should examine service principal sign-ins alongside subsequent Microsoft Graph activity, directory changes, and resource access, correlating suspicious events with authorized administrative activity,” the tech giant notes.
According to Microsoft, since early September, Storm-0940 has used Artex in automated attacks against hundreds of organizations across the aerospace, automotive, chemicals, defense, energy, financial services, government, legal, manufacturing, media, military, semiconductor, software, and technology sectors, as well as against non-profits and think tanks.
This week, Zscaler published a technical deep-dive into Storm-0940’s AI-assisted attacks, including details on how the threat actor uses Artex, its configurations, synchronization scripts, a Claude Code prompt history, and network routing tools.
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