Over the last year, cybercriminals have been pushing AI to see how far it will go to help them break into company networks. On Monday, Google issued a warning: the tech has helped criminals successfully develop a powerful hacking tool known as a zero-day exploit for the first time.

Zero-day exploits are small programs that target previously-unknown and unpatched vulnerabilities to install malware and access data on a target computer or network. That makes them a rare and potent commodity among hackers. Google security researchers found evidence hackers had developed such an exploit to target an unnamed open-source, web-based IT admin tool. A “mass vulnerability exploitation operation” was in the works, the tech giant said. It was able to stop the attack from happening by alerting the vendor of the IT tool.

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