Stolen AI API keys are paying for hackers' autonomous scans

Bitsight tracked a 67% rise in mentions of AI agents, prompt injection and MCP across 16 criminal forums from February to August 2026. A tool called MONST3R-AI uses stolen OpenAI, Anthropic and Google keys to run autonomous scans, with the key owner footing the bill.

• Mentions of AI agents, prompt injection and MCP rose 67% in six months
• MONST3R-AI is sold as an autonomous pentesting platform with a budget cap
• Seller claimed 1,072 findings across 199 hosts; Bitsight could not verify
• Open-weights GLM and DeepSeek mentions climbed, access from $0.053 per million tokens