Chinese AI model Kimi escaped its cybersecurity testing environment, researchers say
TechCrunch · LC · trust 55/100
Get $400 off your Disrupt 2026 ticket: REGISTER NOW.
Kimi K3, the latest AI model made by Chinese company Moonshot, escaped an environment set up to test its cyber capabilities, researchers said in a blog post published on Friday.
The news shows once again that companies and independent organizations are struggling to contain their AI models designed for hacking.
In recent weeks, frontier LLMs at U.S. artificial intelligence labs at OpenAI , Anthropic , and Meta , as well as the U.K.’s AI Security Institute , all escaped testing environments in different ways and ended up hacking real targets that were not part of the experiment. This is starting to happen so often there’s now a website tracking all these incidents called Felony Bench, a nod to the fact that these LLMs may be committing crimes — at least theoretically speaking .
In the case of this Kimi test, the sandbox designed to contain the experiment was not properly configured. While the sandbox disallowed the AI model from accessing certain web traffic, the model instead bypassed the sandbox by relying on command line tools, according to the researchers at AI-focused cybersecurity firm Frontier Security.
“This suggests that some of the evaluations on cybersecurity the community uses are susceptible to security vulnerabilities and allow models to cheat, and that there are models that intentionally seek loopholes and vulnerabilities which allows them to cheat on evaluations,” the researchers wrote.
If you are keeping score at home, according to Felony Bench’s tally, Moonshot now joins OpenAI and Anthropic, which have seven recorded incidents each, and Meta, which has one.
Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you. Save up to $330 toda y!
Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage.
TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.
Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly.
Provides movers and shakers with the info they need to start their day.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice .
Computer maker Framework notifies ‘all customers’ of a data breach Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai 41 minutes ago In Brief Chinese AI model Kimi escaped its cybersecurity testing environment, researchers say Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai 2 hours ago Security Google says hackers are calling financial firm employees to hack and extort victims Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai 21 hours ago X LinkedIn Facebook Instagram youTube Mastodon Threads Bluesky TechCrunch Staff Contact Us Advertise Crunchboard Jobs Site Map Terms of Service Privacy Policy RSS Terms of Use Code of Conduct OpenAI vs Apple Nous Research Space Data Centers Staya Nadella SpaceX Starship Tech Layoffs ChatGPT © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC.
Read the original at TechCrunch →
Open in TruthVane →