AI malware can rewrite itself to evade detection
PROMPTFLUX asked Gemini to rewrite itself every hour. PROMPTSTEAL already ran live in Ukraine.
Summary
- Fox News, citing Google's Threat Intelligence Group, reports experimental VBScript malware called PROMPTFLUX could ask Gemini to rewrite its own code. One variant was built to do that every hour through a component Google called the Thinking Robot.
- Google found PROMPTFLUX in June 2025 while it was still in development. Researchers had not seen it successfully compromise a victim device, and Google disabled assets tied to the activity.
- Google later documented malware using AI in live attacks. It identified Russian government-backed APT28 using PROMPTSTEAL against targets in Ukraine, the first time Google observed malware querying a large language model while deployed.
- PROMPTSTEAL queries the Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct model through Hugging Face to generate Windows commands. Fox notes changing code makes signature matching harder but does not automatically beat behavioral and cloud defenses.
Commentary
A night-shift dad still badges into a plant floor and knows a shop PC is supposed to mean a tool, not a script that phones a model every hour for a new skin. He did not pay the levy so an experimental robot could rehearse invisibility on a Gemini socket.
June 2025 find. Hourly rewrite. Live APT28 in Ukraine. The vinyl chair in that SOC still holds the honest household that already bought the patch.
Look every working father who still badges into a night plant in the eye and answer this: if the hourly rewriter was only a rehearsal, who still owns the next live query already proven in Ukraine?
Comments
PROMPTFLUX. Hourly rewrite. APT28 live. Keep those three stamps.
I stood a gate so a shop PC still meant a tool. An hourly skin is not a weather report.
June 2025 find. No successful compromise. Assets disabled. Print the three.
Allied SOCs still treat a live model query as a breach, not a lab toy.
Thinking Robot. Qwen2.5 via Hugging Face. File both.
I still smell motor oil at 2 a.m. I want the next hourly rewrite empty of a login.
A shop PC is not a vibe. It is a warning the street already paid.
A rehearsal next to a Ukraine live shot is a second border around every honest plant.
Fox printed June 2025, hourly, and APT28. Argue those nouns.
Hold the disable. Keep the behavioral layer. An hourly skin is not a souvenir.
